


Corrupted by the Grave

by Phantom_of_the_Frost



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Coercion, Danny Fenton Whump, Ghost Cores, Ghost Lairs, Government Experimentation, Hurt Danny, I swear Valerie's not an asshole, Manipulation, Medical Experimentation, Near Death Experiences, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Objectification, Psychological Torture, She'll come around, Torture, Unethical Experimentation, Vivisection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:07:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 48,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23756620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phantom_of_the_Frost/pseuds/Phantom_of_the_Frost
Summary: He was intangible. How could it touch him?But there he was, wrapped in the thing’s fist. He could hear his friends and sister yell his name through the earpiece, but couldn’t reply as he felt the solid mass around him begin to dissolve. As the fist encasing him began to melt, he couldn’t hold back a scream as the creatures began to try and absorb him. He flailed, but that only succeeded in getting his limbs trapped further in their ectoplasm. They were writhing around him, sucking at his skin, devouring him.He felt his core… loosen almost.Or... the Guys in White create an ectoplasmic entity solely for the purpose of weakening Phantom enough to capture him and drawing his traitorous allies out into the open.
Comments: 48
Kudos: 175





	1. Parasitic Wrath

**Author's Note:**

> Hey!  
> There are no real warnings for the first chapter, as it's mainly just a set up for what's to come.  
> AKA most of the tags for this story happen in later chapters.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Danny couldn’t help but groan in disbelief as his ghost sense went off,  _ again. _ There was a surplus of low grade ‘ghosts’ recently, if you could even call them that. At first, they weren’t even as sentient as the ectopuses; they were literal piles of ectoplasm that would barely jiggle and struggle to even hold its own form. They were annoying to clean up because Danny was having to track down and catch up to  _ twenty _ a day on top of his normal ghost hunting. It was beginning to take its toll on him, mainly because they only really showed up after sundown while he was trying to fall asleep. 

After the jiggly piles of ectoplasm, they slowly evolved to blobs of ectoplasm that rolled around and would bump into Danny’s ankles as he scooped them up to take back to the ghost portal.

Recently, they have evolved even more. He was first notified of this when one of his routinely flybys of him sucking the blobs into the Fenton thermos without even pausing to land, ended with a blob tackling him into the side of a building and trying to suck him into its body. It seemed to have absorbed some of his ectoplasm or  _ something.  _ All Danny knows is that after he had managed to get the green gurgling blob off of him, it seemed larger and Danny felt more exhausted than usual. As if he had been drained. They had only gotten bigger and faster from there. They were never sentient, however. They never talked, never had faces, or expressed pain. They were more like what his parents believed to be ghosts. 

He had just dealt with a blob the size of a horse not twenty minutes ago and now here he was, staring at his ceiling and wondering how much trouble the newest blob could get into if Danny just left it be. He knew, however, that there was no way his Obsession would be satisfied enough to sleep unless the blob that triggered his ghost sense was handled.

He felt like the character in Minecraft that can’t sleep because  _ there are monsters nearby.  _

Danny chuckled before throwing his covers off and slipping out of bed. He changed mid-step as he phased through his wall and headed out to the streets. He stayed invisible, as Sam had warned him that the little ecto-blob things could be bait for Phantom. Although, he hasn’t seen anyone watching him as he deals with the barely-ghosts. He scans the streets, finally turning tangible as he finds the ghost that set off his ghost sense. 

It was a blob, much bigger than the others, rolling around a small, dark alley only two streets over from his house. 

He pulled out his thermos, hovering quite a distance above the alley. He does  _ not _ want to be engulfed in one of those things again. It almost felt as if he was being absorbed into the blob kind of like how Dan absorbed Vlad’s ghost half and became… well, evil.

The whole process of one ghost absorbing another seemed unsettling to Danny, and he’d rather not be the white little dot that Pac-Man eats. Man, that didn’t make any sense. He really needed sleep. This new blob was the eighth one that night and most likely wouldn’t be the last. 

He allowed himself to float just a little lower into the alley and he watched as the blob absorbed the dumpster he was next to. It was awkward to watch since the thing was translucent, but Danny learned that the larger ones were easier to catch when weighed down by things they had absorbed. It kept them from launching themselves at him while he was in the air, anyways. 

He finally aimed his thermos and whirred it on, sucking the ectoplasmic blob off of the dumpster it had absorbed and pulled it all into the thermos. He hadn’t even had time to cap his thermos before his ghost sense went off again. He groaned, but diligently flew upwards to get a better sight of where the next blob might be. 

He spotted the next blob thing and flew there, diving in close to quickly suck him into the thermos so he could go back to sleep. However, just as he turned to head home, he spotted another green glow lighting up the side of a building two streets over. He went there and caught that one too, but spotted another one another two streets over. This continued, several more times and Danny got the distinct feeling that he was following a trail of breadcrumbs. 

His thermos was almost full, so instead of catching the rest of the blobs, he gave himself some altitude and decided to see what was at the end of the trail. He followed the glow of the blobs and was eventually led to the park. He tried his best to be cautious, even though that wasn’t his strongest suit, and slowly circled the park to try and determine if anything sketchy was going on before he continued to follow the trail. After finding nothing, he continued to the trail. 

The trail led to… nothing. What? 

Danny stopped and looked around, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary other than the green blobs that led him here. He crossed his arms and frowned, thermos still held in his hand as he saw a red blur approaching him. 

_ Oh great, Valeries here.  _ Danny thought just as the huntress noticed him and began to take her aim. 

Danny chose to ignore her desire to fight and instead flew towards her, dodging her blasts and trying to get close enough to talk. The closer he got to her, the less time he had to react to avoid her missiles. Just as Danny had gotten close enough so she could hear him, she fired again. He was much to close to be able to dodge the blast entirely or to even use a shield, so he tried moving out of the way and felt as the blast grazed his side. 

It stung, but he tried to ignore it in favor of trying to talk to Valerie. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, she fired several more shots and Danny went intangible just in time to where he only felt the heat from her blasts, but no pain. Fuck this. He was trying to be normal and not creepy, but she was starting to piss him off.

“I just want to ask you a damn question!” Danny yelled, before approaching her slowly, while intangible and invisible, watching to see if her suit would still be able to pick up where he was at.

“Yeah right,” Valerie growled while swinging her head around trying to find him. So her suit couldn’t see him. Good. “You baited me all the way down here with your creepy goo friends just to ask questions,” Valerie said as she crossed her arms. Danny reappeared directly in front of her, ready in case she would try and shoot him again. 

“I-I didn’t bait you down here,” Danny said placatingly, putting his hands up to try and show her he didn’t mean to harm her. “I thought someone was trying to lead  _ me _ down here. But I couldn’t find anything anyways-” Danny was cut off as a deafening creaking could be heard. He turned to see the ground splitting, a green light shining through. He waited for several moments, watching as a large gooey hand shot out of the ground grabbing at a tree and beginning to pull itself out of the cracked ground. 

“What the-” Danny trailed off, wondering what could possibly happen  _ now _ to keep him from going to bed. He was brought out of his thoughts as pain ripped through his back and he fell, losing altitude fast and unable to stop it as he convulsed in pain. 

_ Had Valerie fucking shot him while his back was turned?! _

Danny hit the ground hard, barely getting to his sense in time to avoid getting crushed as a second hand appeared from the fractured ground, digging its massive fingers into the ground as it tried to gain leverage to pull itself from inside the earth. 

“Did you just fucking shoot me?” Danny yelled at the woman on the hoverboard who was  _ still aiming at him _ . 

“What is this!? What did you do!?” Valerie yelled back. 

“Me?! Do you really think if I had done this I would have  _ led  _ you here?!” Danny put a little distance between himself and Valerie, not really trusting her not to take another cheap shot at him. 

He decided it would be best to take down whatever this thing was before it could properly get its bearings. He shot multiple blasts at it, and everywhere he hit would dissolve and fall off of the thing and turn into those jelly monsters that absorbed everything they touched. The bigger of a blast he hit the thing with, the more jelly monsters fell to the ground. He saw Valerie launch missile after missile at the thing with the same result. 

He pulled out his phone and quickly called Sam. Sam, god bless her, answered after only two rings. 

“Danny? You okay?” Sam’s voice was gruff and it was obvious he had just woken her up, but he didn’t quite care about that right now. 

“Hey, you and Tucker want to meet me in Amity park? Preferably with more thermoses? Like a  _ lot _ more thermoses? Oh, and you might want to swipe the Spector speeder and bring Jazz too. Oh, and Valerie’s here,” He said as he used his thermos to scoop up as many of the jelly creatures as he could before his thermos was full.

“Okay, Danny. We’ll be right there.” Sam’s voice was much more serious, and Danny couldn’t help but feel relieved yet again at what great friends he had. He hung up and swooped back into the fray, trying his ice powers instead. The giant climbing from the ground had gotten his face and shoulders out and Danny froze the ground around the giant and the surrounding trees so he couldn’t get a grip to pull himself further out of the large crevice. 

He then blasted the creature as hard as he could with ice, piling layer upon layer on the thing. He froze the giant’s face and worked his way down, freezing the arms and shoulders and hands all scrambling to get the ice off. After unloading enough ice upon the thing to make Danny feel a little light-headed, he backed off to see whether it worked. 

For several moments, Danny thought the fight was over. Then, the ice slowly started to crack until it began to shatter too quickly for Danny to repair. The giant roared, throwing a large piece of ice at Danny. Danny went intangible, allowing the ice to pass through him as he appraised the creature below. 

He began blasting it again, watching as Valerie unloaded missile after missile into it. Again, everywhere they hit the creature melted a bit, every drop of ectoplasm it lost turning into a blob. 

“Hey, ghost kid! We can’t let that thing leave its hole!” Valerie yelled at him from across the battlefield.

“I-I can try one more thing, but I can’t guarantee it’ll work,” Danny said as he shot into the sky, hovering directly above the thing. “Cover your ears!” He yelled and watched, waiting for Valerie to understand and back away. Once she did, he unleashed his ghostly wail. He aimed it directly at the creature below, hoping to force it back to where it came from. 

He put every ounce of strength he had in the attack, wondering if it would even affect something as massive as the creature. Once he was done, he felt a dropping sensation but was quickly caught by something hard and metal. He peered up at Valerie, who was glaring down at him but still reached down to pull him to his feet. 

“Well, it seems you made things a whole lot worse,” she said as she looked at the scene below. 

The trees were all blown back from the force of his wail, and where the giant once was were  _ hundreds _ of little blobs, all rolling and stumbling their way towards them. 

“Yeah, but at least the big thing is dead,” Danny joked, but Valerie didn’t smile and instead just pointed his attention back to the scene. 

“Oh yeah, he seems dead alright,” she grumbled and Danny watched, dumbfounded, as another hand, this one quite a bit smaller, reached through the multitude of blobs to again try and get out. 

“Perfect,” Danny groaned before leaving Valerie to float back to the blob things. He noticed that they all turned to follow where he went. He shot at one, and as it split into two, shot again. He continued for several minutes, having to continuously dodge the green blobs that would try and pounce on him to knock him out of the air. He kept his focus on the same blob he had attacked and kept blasting until there was nothing left but burnt grass. If he had to blast each one of those things that many times to kill them, it would take  _ days _ . 

“Okay, so I have backup coming. My idea is to blast the thing until there’s nothing left but the blobs and then just clean them all up. They don’t seem so dangerous,” Danny suggested while eyeing said things as they trampled one another into a small mountain in an attempt to reach him. Valerie just nodded, streaking through the sky and firing both missiles and blasters at the massive blob-creature thing, melting more and more mini blobs off. Danny went to help, his little army of green blob stalkers trudging towards him.

They had both blasted until Danny was sweating and heaving with the effort and Valerie had run out of missiles and was relying solely on her ecto-rifle and hand-blasters. Yet the monster had barely gotten smaller and now had its entire upper body out of the ground. And to top that off, the more they blasted the big one, more little ones joined up in following Danny and leaping up towards him, as if he were a piece of meat being dangled above him.

It would be an understatement to say Danny was anything less than ecstatic at seeing the Spector speeder heading straight towards them. It zoomed past and launched more missiles at the beast before circling back and lowering itself to the ground. Sam and Jazz walked out, but both were wearing masks, probably since Valerie was there. Both were armed with thermoses, and they began clearing the blobs as quickly as possible, but Danny knew it wouldn’t be too much longer before they ran out of space. Tucker drove the Spector speeder and continued to fly past the beast, firing unrelentingly and creating more and more of the blobs that gathered under Danny as soon as they hit the ground.

Danny retreated from the fight, going to Sam to retrieve his earpiece. 

“Well, it’s good to see you. Welcome to the party,” he said as she handed over the earpiece. 

“You best get to work before I suck  _ you _ into the Fenton thermos instead of your apparent fans,” she replied and he laughed, looking mock offended before jumping back into the fray. 

He put the earpiece in and then blasted the hand reaching to grab the Spector speeder, melting it down to the wrist and watching as it dropped dozens of blobs as it bled. It wasn’t long until the hand grew back, and this time, it reached for Danny. He went intangible to fly through the hand to shoot at the things blobfish face with eyes drooping down the face and a mouth that was half on the neck, but still hit the hand as if it was concrete. 

_ He was intangible. How could it touch him? _

But there he was, wrapped in the thing’s fist. He could hear his friends and sister yell his name through the earpiece, but couldn’t reply as he felt the solid mass around him begin to dissolve. As the fist encasing him began to melt, he couldn’t hold back a scream as the jelly things began to try and  _ absorb _ him. He flailed, but that only succeeded in getting his limbs trapped in the ectoplasm of the blob creatures. They were writhing around him, sucking at his skin and he felt his core… loosen almost. 

He felt his energy leave his body and feared he was about to simply  _ cease to exist _ as the multitude of ghost-parasites absorbed his core, when a loud  _ boom _ echoed throughout the park. 

He fell, the blobs holding on to him and the hand they were all still encased in all plummeting to the ground. Danny watched in morbid fascination as the hand melted into more blob monsters. When they hit the ground, Danny didn’t even register the impact at first. He couldn’t feel the pain of his body smashing into the ground. The only reason he could tell he even hit the ground was because the number of blobs piling on top of him and suffocating him under their hordes increased exponentially as all of those on the ground were now fighting for the chance to touch his skin and absorb his core. 

He fought wildly, squirming and trying to blast the things away, but they grabbed unto his hands and steadily sucked his power from him. They were weighing him down, pinning him, and sapping his strength. He couldn’t even lift his pinky.

He could hear fighting and screams and blasts and explosions, but he knew his friends were going to be too late. He could already feel an unnatural cold, even for a ghost, creep into him. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He tugged at his core, hoping to feel enough strength for one last fight. 

He felt the blobs suck on his neck and face and could feel the slime coat his body as they did. He couldn’t hear his friends anymore, the blobs covering every inch of his body, blocking out any sight, sound, or sensation other than their feeding. 

He focused all of his strength on a shield. A shield that would start at his core and work its way outward from there. He released his breath, feeling as a blob tried to enter his nose and mouth, but focusing instead on his core. He closed his eyes and strained as he felt a shield form around his core. The blobs could sense that they were no longer feeding on his core and were now causing pain to lace through him. The slime that they secreted was now burning and felt as if it was melting his skin to match theirs. His shield blinked away at the horrifying thought, but he focused again, pulling his shield back into place and steadily expanding it. 

It hurt. His core felt as if was cracking, but he forced his shield to continue to expand until the blobs were pushed off of his skin and he was able to curl up under the protective screen. He stayed there, curled and focused on the one thing keeping his core alive. The shield. 

If he could keep that up, he would survive. If not, he wouldn’t even die. He’d just cease to exist. 

He couldn’t help the small cry that escaped him as the shield began to crack under the weight of the blobs piled on top. His core wasn’t strong enough.  _ He was going to lose. _

He felt himself shaking, body now unbearably hot as his core fought desperately to maintain the shield. 

He knew he wasn’t going to be able to keep this up for many more moments and that his friends wouldn’t have enough time to save him. He was just about to let the shield go when he felt the pressure start to decrease. His shield wasn’t as under as much strain as it was moments ago and he cracked his eyes open to see what had saved him. 

His shield blinked away to nothing, and he wanted nothing more than to pass out. As it was, his vision was blurry and he couldn’t make out who was standing above him. 

“Danny!  _ RUN!” _ Sam’s cries filtered into Danny’s mind, but he was slow to respond. The figure above him kneeled down and was reaching towards him with something metal.

_ A syringe. _ Danny realized, and he raised a hand, blasting the figure in front of him with as much energy he could muster, which was not much. The man stumbled backward, and Danny pushed himself to his hands and knees. 

Suddenly, there were hands all over him, pushing him back to the ground and pulling his arms behind his back. Instead of struggling, he went easily and allowed the momentum of them pushing him into the ground to be what allowed him to escape. He went intangible after they pushed him, going through the ground and floating steadily downwards into the dark earth. 

He mustered up the energy to fly out of the earth while remaining intangible, but knew he was sacrificing too much of his core to use his powers. He ignored that fact and floated up, trying to blink away the blurriness and focus on what was in front of them. 

_ The Guys in White… _ There were dozens of them scattered all over the park. The big monster they had been fighting had been defeated and all of the blobs were being sucked into what looked like an eighteen-wheeler with a large gas tank attached to it. Except instead of gas, it contained the parasite blobs. The GIW, along with the truck sucking up the blobs, had a jet and several vehicles.

Sam, Jazz, and Tucker had all been handcuffed and were being guarded by several agents. Valerie was on the ground, consulting with the GIW. 

Danny felt his intangibility fade until he was just a half-conscious ghost hovering over a small army. He angled himself towards Sam, Tucker, and Jazz, determining he was at least going to free them, but fell more than flew towards them. He wasn’t able to dodge the blasts from the GIW and was soon grounded again. He pushed himself back to his feet, feeling his legs shake and threaten to give out underneath him. 

“L-let them go,” he slurred, hoping his voice was loud enough to even carry to the agents surrounding him, circling him like a pack of wolves ready to feast on their prey. 

“How the hell is this thing still conscious?” One of the agents asked as another pulled out a gun that looked slightly different than the rest.

“Who cares? It’s barely standing up. It’s not a threat,” the agent loading the odd gun said.

“I was never a threat,” Danny said, but knew it came out as nothing more than gibberish.

The agent holding the weird gun took aim and fired before Danny could even realize he needed to move. Something hit him, knocking him into the ground and then began wrapping its white tendrils around him, curling tighter and tighter until he felt like he was rolled up like a caterpillar in its cocoon. 

Danny mustered the strength to lift his head to look at the GIW agent moving towards him, but his effort was useless because the agent simply shoved his head back to the ground before pressing something cold and metal the size of a quarter into Danny’s neck. 

Danny groaned as the metal thing seemed to dig into his skin and he tried to blink away the darkness creeping into his sight. His head was still being pressed into the ground as another agent walked over with a metal muzzle and secured that on his face.

“Alright, the target is secure. Sedate him and load him into the transport vehicle, team Alpha. Team Beta, you stay behind and interrogate the civilians. Theta and Omega, prepare to guard the transport vehicle from both the ground and the air. Mrs. Gray, would you like to accompany us? My supervisor would like to speak with you,” a gruff voice said

“I’d love to. Been wanting that particular ghost off of the streets for a long time, agent,” Valerie said in a sickly sweet voice. Danny felt his breathing slow, but fought against unconsciousness as hard as he could. The last thing he needed was the GIW to know his secrete identity. 

He tried his best to thrash and break free of whatever had encased him as another agent walked over with a syringe. He could  _ not _ fall unconscious and reveal his identity to the GIW. 

The two agents grabbed him and forcefully pinned him to the ground, pressing his face so hard into the dirt he could feel the muzzle cut into his skin. He screamed and tried to break free despite their weight and his exhaustion, but the man with the syringe was steadily making his way closer. He knelt next to Danny and Danny cried out again, trying to plead through his muzzle to not sedate him, but nonetheless, felt the needle pierce his skin.

It wasn’t but a few moments later before his eyes felt heavy and he realized he was going to lose the battle of consciousness. He felt himself being hefted over a shoulder and knew that he was also going to be captured. There was no getting out of this one. He’d be captured, but he would escape. He  _ always  _ escapes. He could hear Sam and Jazz screaming and yelling at the agents, but couldn’t make out their words nor lift his head to see them. He could hear Valerie, only a few feet away, speaking to an agent. 

Danny’s eyes drifted shut, and the last words he could make out were Valerie’s: “I’m just glad this one finally got what he deserved for ruining my life.”


	2. Peanut Butter Sandwiches are Nice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Finally got another chapter out and much sooner than I had anticipated too. Not only that, but this chapter is about the size of two chapters together! I think they fit together nicely, though. 
> 
> Special thanks to all those who comment and subscribe and leave kudos! It's nice to see other people enjoying my work!
> 
> No real warnings in this chapter; everything has been updated in the tags.  
> Vivisection and invasive medical experiments do not take place in this chapter.

Danny was clawing at a dark blanket, trying desperately to answer questions to ease the fear creeping through him. He couldn’t even process _what_ he was trying to answer as he fought to regain consciousness and push the darkness settled over his mind away. He just knew that something was _wrong wrong wrong…_

The fear of something being horribly amiss was validated when he woke up enough to feel the all encompassing pain that felt as if it was eating at his core. His core felt... different. It seemed more fractured, as if it was barely keeping itself held together. He felt a groan escape his lips and the sound and feel of his own pain seemed to awaken his senses more.

He slowly blinked his eyes open, but he couldn’t understand what he was seeing. Everything was so _bright_. 

“Subject is waking up. Increase dosage.” 

No sooner had the words drifted into Danny’s mind before he felt a sharp prick in his neck and everything sank back into a sleepy abyss.

* * *

The next time he woke, Danny was alone. He was also in pain, as if his entire being was just one massive bruise. His core felt cold and fractured, as if even the slightest touch could destroy him. 

He tried sitting up, but fell back unto the cold surface under him as a sharp pain shot through him. The pain was so severe it stole his breath, and he had to lay still trying to calm his panicked, shallow breathing. It was scary, being in so much pain that it was difficult to breathe and he had to remind himself that he didn’t necessarily even _have_ to breathe to survive. He was dead, mostly, so he shouldn’t be scared.

He tried to move again, this time just his head, to look around and see where he was at. As he turned his head to see beside him, he felt a clank that confirmed that he still had that metal contraption wrapped around his head, effectively muzzling him and preventing him from using his strongest power. The muzzle seemed kind of pointless, though, considering he could barely breathe right much less fight. 

He saw a large, dark room filled with a multitude of computers and agents and what appeared to be doctors or at least scientists strutting around with clipboards and lab coats. The strange thing was, with so much activity around him, he couldn’t hear anything but his own shaky breaths. Upon closer inspection, he could see that he was separated from the rest of the room by a glass cylinder. 

The cylinder composed the center of the large laboratory and was on a raised platform. The room outside was dark, the lights from the computers and soft blue bulbs lighting up the walkways the only light provided. His cylinder, however, was painfully bright, showing him off to the rest of the room.

He definitely felt like a zoo animal, or, more precisely, a fish in a fish bowl. 

He tried again to sit up, but the pain was horrible. He doesn’t think he’s felt anything quite like it. His core felt as if it was grating against itself each time he moved.

He _needed_ to sit up, though. He needed to take full stock of what was around him and what injuries he had so he could begin formulating a plan for escape. He tried again to sit up, and did manage, with a small cry of pain and the feeling of _wrongness_ intensifying. 

Once he was in a seated position, he tried to catch his breath and blink away the black dots dancing in his vision. He reached up to hold his head in hopes that it would help ease the dizziness he felt when he felt a tugging on his arm. He looked down at his arm and noticed there was an IV in his arm pumping in what looked like ectoplasm. He gently tugged it out of him and let it drop to the metal table he had been laying on, watching as it continued to leak ectoplasm all over the table.

He looked out back to the lab and was frustrated to see that most of the scientists and agents had stopped their activities to gawk at him. After several long moments of staring, a few began to approach him. They were looking at him as if he were an intriging puzzle and were scribbling down notes on their dumb clipboards. 

He flipped the closest scientist off, disappointed to see that her response was to simply smile and scribble something down on her clipboard, nodding as if he had just confirmed whatever she had been thinking. He noticed as he was flipping her off that his hand looked gross and kind of depressing.

It was green and yellowish with some spots of deep purples and browns. Perplexed, he looked down at the rest of his body. The first thing he noticed was that he was no longer in his jumpsuit. They must have taken his jumpsuit and put him in this white hospital gown thing. Which was very disturbing.

Thankfully, it seemed his rear was _not_ exposed like it would be in most hospital gowns. Ignoring the massive invasion of his privacy, he looked at his arms and the parts of his legs that were exposed, sad to see that every bit of skin he could see was also discolored and bruised. Those green little sucky things must have done this while trying to feed off of his core. Ew, gross. Ghost hickies.

He poked at his arm and winced at the dull ache. Great. He looked like a rotten banana wrapped in a napkin and had people staring at him as if he were the cure to fucking cancer. 

He felt along the muzzle on his face and tried finding a place to grip it so he could pull it off. 

He was distracted from his efforts to remove the muzzle as noise suddenly filled the small glass cylinder. He tensed, preparing for a fight, and could briefly hear voices of people talking, the sounds of phones ringing, and even of someone _laughing_. It sounded wrong to hear something so normal right now.

He looked up to find the source of the noise and saw a woman in a pristine white lab coat enter his cell, dragging a wooden chair behind her. The glass door closed with a hiss and all of the noise instantly disappeared. Well, except for the scrape of the chair as the women dragged it to the opposite side of the cylinder as him. Danny strained his eyes to find a seam indicating where the door was, but it appeared to be solid glass

The woman pulled out a little remote attached to a necklace and pressed a button and, suddenly, his cylinder was no longer clear, but an opaque white that blocked out the rest of the room and left just the two of them alone, in silence. The lady took her time in sitting down and adjusting her lab coat. She slowly opened a small briefcase and pulled out a folder. She ignored him entirely as she looked over the papers in her hands. 

For some odd reason, Danny disliked that this woman wasn’t afraid of him. She was treating him as if he was no more dangerous than a pile of ectoplasm sitting on the table. Danny wanted to poke fun at her and irritate her through sarcastic and witty comments. It was easy to aggravate his enemies and show just how unafraid he was of them. As it was, he figured if he tried to speak all that would come out as complete gibberish, so he instead sat and glared at her as she continued to ignore him. 

He needed to get that remote that whited out his cylinder. It might just be able to open it, too. He _needed_ that remote, despite the fact that he thinks if he tries to stand up, he might just pass out. He needs to escape sooner rather than later. His parents would notice that he’s missing soon.

Finally, she set the folder down in her lap and looked up at him. They stared at one another for several moments, his eyes burning green with rage while her face was entirely blank. 

“Hello, _Phantom_ ,” she said, spitting his name as if it were a curse. “I’m Dr. West, and I’ll be working with you for the foreseeable future,” the woman said dismissively as her eyes tracked up and down his body.

Danny felt extremely exposed as the woman looked him over while he was in nothing but a thin white gown. He never liked it when other people saw his injuries, not even Sam or Tucker, and knowing that she could see every inch of his vulnerable, discolored flesh made his skin crawl. For some reason, this woman made him both uncomfortable and extremely angry. 

She continued to appraise him as if he were a piece of meat, humming thoughtfully and taking notes every few moments. Danny wanted the red-haired woman to look away or look at his _eyes_ or _anywhere_ but his bruised skin. He lashed out in anger, trying his best to yell and curse at her through the muzzle, but it only served to make the woman laugh at his poor attempt of speaking. 

“Don’t worry, dear, that won’t be on for much longer,” the woman said as she gestured to the muzzle. “It’s necessary until we can learn the extent of the damage done to your core by our ecto-parasites, though,” she said absentmindedly as she again glanced down at her folder.

Danny was pondering whether it would be worth the effort to stand up and move to try and snatch the folder from her when it struck him that she had been calling him _Phantom_. Not Fenton. He looked at his hand and, yeah, there it was. Despite the multitude of bruises covering his skin, he could see the very faint, but still there, glow of his aura. It was depressingly dim and he assumed that it reflected just how weak his core must be.

But the point was, he hadn’t changed back when he was unconscious… He lifted his hands and felt at the little quarter sized disc that was still attached to his skin at his neck. They had put this thing on him before they injected him with whatever that made him fall asleep. Maybe this thing prevented him from using his powers… _all_ his powers, including turning back into a human.

“I am the lead researcher on your case, Phantom, and according to the limited research of the previous scientist on your case, you’re quite intelligent for a ghost. In fact, you deem yourself to be human,” the woman said and Danny ignored her, instead continuing to look at his hand and noticing that he seemed almost faded. As a matter of fact, he was _translucent_ . Not only was his aura pathetically dim, but he could see through his arm and straight down to the floor if he focused. Now _that_ was unsettling. Just how weak had those parasite things made him?

“Now in a test of your intelligence, we are attempting to try communicating to you to gain your cooperation. In return, we will help with the... slight problem you have,” the woman continued and Danny looked up at her in question.

“You see, you’re normally quite strong for a ghost and can appear fully visible in our spectrum and even fully tangible,” the woman, Dr. West, set down the folder she had been reading and took her glasses off, suddenly focusing all of her attention on him. He fought not to fidget under her observation and, instead, glared back, matching her intensity. 

“You’re categorized as a level nine spectrum and have an impressively strong and stable core, especially since you have no known lair and spend a majority of your time in the human world according to our scans. However, after your encounter with the ecto-parasites, your core was damaged a considerable amount,” she said with a blank expression despite how smug her words sounded. Danny rolled his eyes at her and mimicked her talking with his hands. She seemed to be resisting the urge to be irritated at him and instead gave only a blank and calm expression.

“This means any tests or studies could potentially shatter your core completely at the slightest wrong touch. Basically, you are far weaker than we ever thought possible, yet somehow still stubbornly alive,” Dr. West said before standing and taking several steps until she was right in front of him.

“Here is the deal we have to offer: in return for your cooperation, we will help strengthen your core and stabilize your form. After you are stable, you will fully cooperate with our staff and allow them to perform examinations and conduct tests and studies. This will include speaking to a team of psychologists. If you fail to uphold your end of the deal or reject this deal, you will be kept drugged to ensure your compliance,” she said with a grin. “The only reason we would prefer you to _not_ be drugged into a calm and content state is because we would lose the opportunity to observe your normal behavior or be able to correctly study your psychological state.”

Dr. West reached back into her lab coat and pulled out the little remote. She pressed a button and his muzzle suddenly fell off and landed in his lap. He reached up and rubbed at his face as Dr. West spoke once again.

“So, Phantom, do we have a deal?” The woman sounded extremely confident, as if she already knew what he would say. And maybe she did. He was in no condition to fight and it would help him escape if they gave him something to strengthen his core. It’d probably be best to play along and get stronger while his friends and sister worked to break him out and while he worked on his escape. 

“If I say yes will you stop monologuing?” Danny questioned and felt satisfied at seeing Dr. West’s eye twitch in frustration. 

“Very well,” she stated, turning away from him and returning to her chair, taking the muzzle with her. She sat back down and held the remote up to show him. “Let’s see if you can be docile for the next few hours,” she challenged while pressing a button that opened the glass door and allowed several people to enter with trays of tools and utensils being rolled in with them.

Danny tensed, but remained still as they surrounded him. His table was pulled away from the edge of the cylinder thing and into the very center, him still sitting on it, gripping the edge hard enough to feel his fingers ache. If he still had his powers no doubt he would have bent the metal table. 

He looked past the lab coats and surgical masks swarming him and saw Dr. West dragging her chair out of the room. She gave him a mocking smile before turning away and leaving him alone with the team of doctors. 

The doctors didn’t speak to him like Dr. West had and instead pushed and pulled him where they wanted him. It was honestly terrifying in a way, to finally be stuck on an examination table, people with surgical masks standing over him. Only now, he wasn’t strapped down, he was just far too weak to really resist. 

There were way too many hands on him that were pressing into his bruised flesh and pressing cold stethoscopes to his chest and back. Someone was behind him pressing through the thin gown he was wearing to feel his spine. There was another hand, pressing to his throat and trying to find his pulse. He saw someone else step forward and snip a piece of his hair off.

“Hey!” He objected but was quickly silenced by a tongue depressor being thrust into his mouth and then a light was shining down his throat, a doctor leaning in way too close to see down his throat.

He was trying to calm down and _not_ think about all of the nightmares he’s had about being dissected and experimented on, but the more he tried to ignore the growing panic the more the people would press closer, suffocating him.

He felt someone grab his chin and jerk it towards them before shining a penlight in his eye. He gave in, shoving the person’s hand off of his face and then pushing all of the other hands away. 

“Have you guys ever learned about personal space?!” Danny questioned while shoving the stethoscope away too. “I don’t care if you listen to my heart or _whatever_ the hell you’re doing but-” Danny was interrupted as he saw Dr. West again. The cylinder was clear once again and most of the people in the room were gathered around him, watching through the glass. Dr. West was standing directly to his left, with the best view of what all was happening. She had a cruel grin on her face and Danny could mockingly hear her words: “ _can you be docile for the next few hours?”_ Few _hours!?_ No fucking way was he going to be swarmed like this for hours. It’s been like thirty seconds and he already feels angry and exhausted. 

“Hey, isn’t there a such thing as patient-doctor confidentiality?” He joked while gesturing to the large crowd of onlookers. He was trying more than anything to calm himself down. He felt _really_ suffocated now that he was literally surrounded by dozens of people and on display like a bug under a microscope. 

Surprisingly, the doctors did back off a little and one of the younger ones stepped forward and met his eye. “Sorry,” she said. “We were just a little excited, I guess. You’re unlike any other ghost we’ve studied. I mean you have a _pulse._ ” She said the last bit almost reverently and it only served to make Danny more uncomfortable. 

Surely the GIW would be too dumb to figure out that he was still half-alive right? The only other halfas were Vlad and Danielle and neither of them have been captured by these idiots. 

“Yeah, that’s because I have organs and don’t feed off of energy like other ghosts,” Danny mumbled. Technically, it was the truth. He didn’t feed off of energy completely. Maybe if they thought he used human food for energy it would explain why he had organs and such and convince them to actually feed him food.

“The girl stepped closer and picked up the discard IV from earlier. “You don’t feed on energy? What do you feed on?” 

Danny was honestly just thankful all of the doctors had backed off and were now just listening instead of poking and prodding him. “I like cheeseburgers,” Danny responded with a shrug. 

“So, does purified ectoplasm even affect you?” The young woman said while motioning towards the IV.

“Uh… I’m not sure? I guess that’d kinda be like a blood transfusion?” He said and she only nodded, as another one of the doctors pulled out another _damn_ clipboard and began to take notes. 

Another doctor stepped forward, and put his hands behind his back. “Do you, uh, have a lair? Or anyplace to charge your core?” He was an older doctor with greying hair and seemed to be shooting warning glances to the younger female doctor.

“Not that I know of. But I have a place where I sleep and stuff” Danny responded half-heartedly, wondering what the young female doctor did wrong. He was glad, however, that his first examination was turning into more of a conversation than a dissection. 

“How do you usually charge your core?” The older man asked. “We’ve been tasked with not only learning about your anatomy and physiology but also in ensuring your core is stabilized and at a healthy strength,” he continued and Danny felt a little safer now that they were actually speaking to him _and_ explaining things to him, even if it’s stuff he already knew. 

“I don’t actually think I have to charge my core. Usually I just eat and go to sleep after big fights or anything. I don’t know, I’m technically only two years old so I haven’t been a ghost for very long,” he said with a small shrug. 

The man stepped forward with a stethoscope and pressed it to Danny’s chest. Danny was slightly annoyed that the man didn’t ask for permission, but still allowed it. He much preferred one doctor touching him than seven. The man spoke whatever results there were and the doctor that had pulled out a notebook quickly jotted it down. 

“You eat human food, have a heartbeat, breathe, and sleep? What even makes you dead?” The young girl spoke up again and most of the other doctors shot her a glare. 

“Um… probably the fact that I died and now have ghost powers?” He joked. He spotted Dr. West moving to his left and looked to see her raise her braclet to her mouth and speak into it. One of the other doctors, a middle-aged balding man, pressed his hand to his ear apparently listening to whatever Dr. West said and then stepped towards the girl. 

“You have all already been told that this ghost likes to pretend to be human and were warned not to encourage his fantasy. You may leave now, Mrs. Robinson,” the man said in a warning tone and the girl looked distraught, but obediently left the room. “And you, Mr. Colton-”

The man was interrupted as the older man, Mr. Colton said, “That would be _Doctor_ Colton, to you, Jameson.”

The balding man, Jameson, continued, “Yes, well. You’ve all been told that this ghost has the delusion of being human. It's one of his few obsessions and you were all warned not to encourage it. Of course the ghost feeds on energy, _it’s a ghost.”_

Danny knew immediately that he did not like Jameson. First, he was rude to Mrs.- or Dr. Robinson who had been nice to him and he kept referring to Danny as _it._

“As for its lair, it remains in Amity Park, so its lair is on earth rather than the ghost zone which is unique, but not unheard of,” the man said, shrugging and turning his attention to Danny. “The ghost breathes and has a heartbeat because its likes to imitate humans, obviously.” He said this as if accusing Danny of some disgusting crime. 

“Now let’s finish the tests and transfer it, already. There is much to do,” Mr. Asshat said angrily before putting both of his meaty paws on Danny’s shoulders and pushing him back to lay unto the table. Danny bit back a scream as his core grated against itself at the quick movement. 

He hadn’t even fully hit the table before his vision was swimming in black from the sheer pain. The doctors began approaching the table, one by one, and Danny felt his eyes water. 

He was in immense pain just from _laying down_ and now who knows what they were going to do to him. Were they going to just cut him open right now? 

Danny squeezed his eyes shut and tried to block out the feeling of hands on his skin. One doctor inserted another IV into his arm, commenting to the other doctors what concentration of ectoplasm was in the bag he used. 

Danny heard Mr. Asshat’s voice echo through his mind stating that Danny would be fed a diet strictly of pure energy and to keep track of what all is given intravenously so they can keep track of how much they’re feeding him.

“We can’t tolerate or enable its delusion, no matter what. That means no human food and _very_ limited communication, if any at all. Dr. West is in charge of this specimen and we will defer to her orders. Any objections? Mr. Colton?” Asshat stated in a rather aggressive way, but there were no responses other than a few murmurs of agreement. 

Danny opened his eyes, but was blinded by the light shining down on him. He tried to lift an arm to block out the light, but it was yanked out of the air and shoved back down the table. “Restrain it,” Mr. Asshat said and _goddamn_ was Danny starting to seriously hate this guy. 

He felt the restraints click around his limbs and despite how much he fought to stay calm, he began to breathe erradictly. 

“Did you bring in the Breath Muzzle, Mr. Snow?” Asshat said and there was some shuffling before another muzzle was being clamped on his face. It only took him a moment to figure out what it was for. He couldn’t breathe. It covered his mouth and his nose and it _wasn’t letting him breathe_. 

Danny couldn’t help it. He knew _logically_ that he didn’t have to breathe, but he was half-human and it was more natural to breathe than not. Plus, he had been staving off a panic attack since the moment he woke up and suddenly being suffocated while restrained to a lab table was _not_ going to help him. 

He began to thrash, trying to pull his hands free to pull the cruel device off of his face. He couldn’t help but scream in pain behind the cruel muzzle as his core burned as hot green agony within him. He distantly noticed that there were hands trying to hold him down but Danny was too caught up in his wild struggles and horrible pain that only added too his fear. He knew nothing but pain and panic and couldn’t even bring himself to care about the tears steadily leaking down his face. 

“Hold it down! It could shatter it’s core!” 

“Shit, just take the damn thing off and let it pretend!” 

“Quiet! It’ll calm down; it needs to know that it’s _not human.”_

The words filtered in through Danny’s panic and Danny began to try and scream through the muzzle just so he wouldn’t have to listen to the harsh truth any longer. 

_He’s not human. He’s not human. He’s_ dead _. He’s dead and his parents want to dissect him. Tear him apart molecule by molecule because he’s a freak and dangerous. He’s not human, he’s pretending. God, he’s been hiding for so long..._

Nightmares of being in this very situation fueled his furious panic as he remembered images his mind had conjured just to terrify him. Images of him looking up at masked doctors ( _just like the ones above him now)_ talking about him like he was an object ( _he’s not human; it’s not human)_ and cutting him open and-

Danny felt a prick in his neck and his panic slowly died into apathy and his fear melted into exhaustion. The pain he had felt was now numbness, the only feeling left those of his tears drying on his skin. He felt as his mind drifted away from his body, pulling him back into the darkness and away from the harsh light shining above him. 

* * *

“Dr. West, all of the samples were gathered and non-invasive tests performed. There is not much else we can do while the subject is so... fragile,” a voice said. It was a male and for some reason, Danny knew he didn’t like whoever’s voice this was.

“Alright, doctor. What do you recommend?” That was definitely Dr. West’s voice, the lady with the shiny little remote she wore around her neck. 

“I-In my professional opinion, I think it is necessary to set up a temporary lair for the ghost. It doesn’t believe that it has a lair and has resided on earth for so long that I think it is possible to provide it with one in our facility. Then, its core should begin healing on its own and at a much faster rate,” the bad voice said and Danny tried to blink his eyes open to glare at whoever it was. 

He couldn’t feel much of anything which he was thankful for, but he still felt groggy and like he does whenever Sam makes him take medicine for pain when he’s hurt. He tries to move and groans, feeling something hard keeping him on the table. 

There’s a hand on his forehead and Danny settles, trying again to open his eyes. He manages to blink them open, but they keep closing! He struggles again to open them but all he sees is harsh brightness and he allows his heavy eyelids to droop back shut. 

The hand on his forehead is nice and cool and so Danny relaxes back against the table. 

Dr. West speaks from directly above him and Danny assumes that’s who’s touching him. “Alright. Turn his containment room into a small lair. Consult the team that did that large project on lairs last year to see what all needs to be included for him to accept it as his own.”

Danny listened as Dr. West spoke, and was oddly pleased to hear her call him ‘him’ and not an ‘it’. 

“Yes, ma’am. Would you like for me to sedate the ghost until the construction is finished?” There was that awful bad voice again. Danny felt his face scrunch up a little and turn away from the voice, but then that cool hand was gently guiding his face back and smoothing all of the stress out of his face. 

“No. I will speak to him before the transfer. You are dismissed, Jameson.” 

_Jameson._ That was the ugly bald man that calls Danny ‘it’ and was mean to the nice lady. He listened as the man left and then the lights in the room began to dim. Soon, it wasn’t painful for Danny to open his eyes and so he did, trying fiercely to keep them open, but mostly failing. 

Dr. West chuckled and then the nice hand was gone. “Phantom? Can you hear me?”

_Yes._

He could hear her, but was struggling to figure out how to tell her. His hands were heavy and had the hard things holding them down. His mouth felt dry and for some reason wouldn’t open. 

He finally decided to turn his head towards where she stood and hope that would suffice. 

“Did you notice that you aren’t breathing? You still have this little thing on and yet are completely fine and unaffected. Why do you pretend to breathe?” With this, Dr. West reached forward and those cool hands were circling behind his ears before an audible _click_ could be heard and then the thing keeping his mouth shut disappeared. 

He wanted to smile and say thanks because now he could move his mouth! But his mouth wasn’t really moving and as he moved his swollen, heavy tongue all he could taste was blood. 

He frowned and then tried to remember what she had said. Had she asked a question? If so then he was being _bad bad bad_ for ignoring her. How rude. 

What had she said? Breathing? Did she want him to breathe? He did and felt a sense of relief and ease return to his body as the fresh air entered his lungs. His mind immediately began to clear of the fog that had settled over it and suddenly he was gasping for air and tugging much harder at his restraints, pain flaring back to life in his abdomen. His limbs began to reawaken sensation flooded back into him. His throat was burning and ached as he gasped for more air and his head felt as if someone had smashed his face in with a sledgehammer. His core felt weaker than ever, as if it had struggled to keep Danny’s human half alive by taking over most all of his bodily functions. 

He groaned loudly, scrunching his face up in pain and trying again to reach up just to hold his head. Now that he was breathing and once again had circulation, his head throbbed painfully with every pulse. It felt like someone was hammering into his skull with every pulse and he felt tears fill his eyes.

“Phantom? Were you- were you _high_? From lack of oxygen?” Dr. West was speaking softly, as if the words weren’t for him to hear. He laid boneless on the table, heart now pounding away violently, as if to make up for lost time. 

_Just how fucking creepy was that? That his heart could just stop and start beating. God he was such a freak._

“You- you weren’t in any discomfort. You were- were calm and relaxed and then… ghosts aren’t supposed to feel pain. You must be faking,” she said, taking on a more stern tone. 

He felt the metal things holding his hands release him and then cool hands trying to help him sit up. As soon as he was in a seated position, he felt nausea race through his body and he was soon doubled over on the floor, dry heaving. Now tears were running down his face again and he quickly wiped them away, hating himself for how pathetic he felt. 

Dr. West stayed by his side, but didn’t help. She was watching and after he had calmed himself down and the nausea had passed, she helped him to his feet. She said nothing to him, just led/dragged him to the wooden chair in the room and set him down in it. 

He sank into the chair, wishing he could turn intangible and just sink right through the floor. 

“Phantom. Why did you react like that?” Dr. West finally said and Danny barely had the energy to be angry with her. Oh well, he’d do his best to be pissed. Maybe that’d help get his point across.

How stupid of a question was that though? Why did he react like that to being starved of oxygen, thrown into a panic attack, and then forcefully put to sleep? Well, for starters, what if he had died and never woken up because they didn’t _believe_ him? Could he even die? He was already kinda dead so… 

Danny shook himself out of his thoughts and instead turned his attention to Dr. West. “What the hell do you mean? I _told_ your scientists that I breathe. With my lungs. To get oxygen to my heart. So my body can function. Just like I eat food so that I have energy and don’t _starve_ and how I _sleep_ so I can not be _exhausted_ . I mean did you _not_ take any biology classes in highschool?” He didn’t _intend_ to sound like an ass, but he didn’t necessarily mind it either. 

“You’re dead. You should have no homeostatic features other than that of what ectoplasm naturally does to keep its form. You should not breathe, eat, or sleep. You should simply exist as an abstract construct derived from the imprint of what your life was. Why are you any different from the thousands of other entities that we’ve studied?” She seemed genuinely interested, and Danny tried to remember what she did for him to initially not like her. Well, other than working for his enemy and being the lead researcher on the team that maimed, captured, and intends to study him and experiment on him like a lab rat. 

“Your scientist, Dr. Robinson? Yeah, I think that’s right. She already said that I’m unlike every other ghost, blah, blah, blah. Well, I _know_ that and I know _how_ I’m different so why do you guys act like everything I say is complete bullshit because _‘that’s not how ghosts are,’”_ Danny said in a mocking voice. “When you already fucking _know_ that I’m not like other ghosts!” 

Dr. West didn’t say anything and so Danny continued: “I’m not obsessed with pretending to be human. I live in Amity Park because I can’t _survive_ in the ghost zone! I’m more human than other ghosts so I protect the town because it’s _my home too.”_ Which wasn’t a _total_ lie, but hopefully if he kept throwing little tidbits of information like that, they won’t come to the conclusion that he’s actually human. 

Or at least that makes sense in his head right now, but that’s not saying much considering how every heartbeat sent another throb of pain through his head. 

“Very well. How are you feeling, Phantom?” Dr. West said, and Danny almost felt whiplash from how quick she changed the topic. Was she going to ignore everything he just said?

“Um, like I’ve been run over by a car multiple times and then had my brains bashed in with a baseball bat because I’m being ‘cared’ for by idiots,” he responded in a dull voice. 

“No, I mean specifics. Describe exactly how you feel, or felt when you first woke up, please,” Dr. West said, but she didn’t pull out a clipboard to take notes with like most of the other dimbos in this office. 

“Um. My head hurts? It’s throbbing. My lungs feel… bad-” Danny was cut off by Dr. West.

“Please be more specific, Phantom. How do your lungs feel bad?” 

“Uh, they feel like someone’s sitting on my chest when I breathe and my throat burns. Also, I’m kinda feeling shaky and lightheaded because I missed lunch yesterday and haven’t eaten since breakfast the day I got caught,” he complained and Dr. West only nodded before reaching into her briefcase and pulling out a brown paper lunch bag. 

“Alright. Human food is not on the diet plan our team has constructed for you. However, if you answer a few questions I have, I’ll give you the lunch I brought for myself, deal?” She said with a friendly smile. 

Danny wasn’t fooled. This was about to be an interrogation, not a friendly conversation over a meal. 

“Deal?” She asked again when Danny hadn’t replied and he ignored her question again.

“I’m not a dog. I won’t do tricks for food,” he spat at her, crossing his arms. 

“Surely not, but one of us will go hungry, and I will not give you my lunch for free, Phantom. I want a few more things explained to me and, for your efforts, will give you my food,” the lady said with another smile and began unwrapping the sandwich. “It’s peanut butter and jelly.”

Peanut butter and jelly? What type of high strung, adult scientist eats peanut butter and jelly? He was expecting tuna or something else kind of gross. This probably wasn’t her lunch and was meant for him anyway. 

If he refuses he’ll probably still get it. But what if she isn’t bluffing and doesn’t give it to him? He considers the offer for a long moment, taking the time to feel for his human half and see just how badly he needs food. He couldn't really feel much of his human half because it was clouded by nothing but dull aches. He looked down at his bruised and ugly flesh, knowing he won't start healing until after he eats and gets some sleep. He sighs before finally nodding his consent. 

“Alright,” she picks off a piece of the sandwich and holds it between her fingers. “Do you remember your past life?” 

“Yes. Now gimme,” he said and she gave him the piece of the sandwich. He ate it, despite how he felt slightly dirty about having to _earn_ his food like a seal doing tricks for fish. He wasn't sure whether or not he was imagining it, but his entire body seemed to lighten immediately after he ate the small piece of peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He could probably eat at least like five sandwiches right now and still feel slightly hungry.

“How did you die?” She asked while picking off another piece of the sandwich.

“Electrocuted,” he said while reaching for the sandwich, but she withheld the sugary greatness. 

“I’m going to need more details than that, please,” she said and she didn’t _seem_ to be being mean, but it still was aggravating.

He huffed and rolled his eyes but complied. He had to be careful, though. He could easily slip up and give her an important piece of information. 

“I was with my friends,” he said before pausing. Shit. That was the truth. Why was he telling her any of this? Was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich worth it?

A part of him was chanting _yes yes yes_ and pleading for him to keep going because he's _starving_ , but another small part that seemed a little more clear-headed was trying to think of a good excuse of a lie to how he died. He couldn’t tell her he died in the fucking ghost portal because that would narrow it down to the Fenton’s and Vlad Masters, right? That on top of Danny _Fenton_ being missing right now would basically be handing them the truth on a silver platter. 

“And?” She asked, gesturing for him to continue.

He needed to watch his words. He doesn't know why he wants to just blurt out the truth. “And my dad had just tried to rewire our house and we were warned not to go in and to leave it alone, but my friends dared me and so I _did_ and apparently he wasn’t _done_ because when I cut the power on to the house I, well…” he shrugged, staring down at his bare feet and hoping she wouldn’t press for details. 

She dutifully handed over the sandwich piece and he grabbed it, much more excited about his prize than he should be. 

“Why do you think you remained in our realm?” 

“Oh, that’s easy. I didn’t know whether or not my friends were okay. I didn’t even know _I_ was dead but I needed to check and see if they needed help,” he said and happily accepted another piece of the sandwich. That was the truth too... had he been drugged? He looked at the rest of the sandwich she was holding but couldn't bring himself to be truly suspicious of it. 

“Your main obsession," Dr. West pondered. "Protecting Amity Park. Is that how it developed? No, wait. That’s not a question, I’m pretty sure I know the answer to that,” she said, pausing to think of another question. “What was your name?”

“Oh, no. That’s a no go,” he said, shaking his head.

“Well, that’s my question. If you want the sandwich-” Danny interrupted her, disheartened about potentially losing his sandwich privileges. 

“Oh, come on! There’s gotta be more questions. Besides, you already know my name: Danny Phantom.” He smiled at her, a big, ridiculous, pleading smile. He wanted that damn sandwich. His body already seemed to be actually healing now that he was eating. “Why don’t you ask about ghost stuff instead of my past? 

“Fine. What is your home like?” She asked, pinching off another piece of the peanut butter masterpiece. 

“Um? My home? What do ya mean?” He asked, staring intently at the piece of sandwich as if it might try and run away. 

“You said you sleep. Where do you usually sleep?” Dr. West said before being interrupted by a buzz from what Danny assumed was her phone. She ignored it, however, and so he did too.

“I sleep in the park a lot; the stars are really clear there. I like the coffee shop on main street too, it always smells like coffee and since the bakery is right next door there’s always warmth emitting from one of the two buildings. Oh! And the observatory!” he said and honestly, if he were to have a lair, it would probably be one of the places he told her about. That’s where he liked to hang out nights by himself when he wasn’t on patrol or stressed about some stupid school assignment. 

She nodded and handed him another piece of the sandwich before checking her phone. 

“What would you want in a potential lair of yours?” She asked and he shrugged, eyeing the last little bit of sandwich left. 

“Is this about the lair you guys are trying to give me for my core?” He asked and she nodded without any comment about how he knew that or he shouldn’t listen in to conversations, blah blah blah.

“Um, privacy. Having clothes that actually cover me would be nice and something preferably _not_ white. Uh, maybe having an actual bed and just comfort stuff like pillows and blankets. Oh! And no metal tables or clipboards in sight. And lots of peanut butter sandwiches,” he finished, quite content with the lair he imagined in his mind. 

Speaking of his mind, he was feeling really, _really_ calm and cozy, despite the throbbing in his head and the discomfort in his core. Although both sensations had lessened, they should still be enough to keep him awake, yet here he was, trying not to yawn. 

"One last question, Phantom. Do you access the ghost zone through the Fenton portal?" 

Danny didn't really see how the question would be giving anything away and he was sleepy so he answered with a small 'yeah' and then realized that she didn't have any more sandwich left. 

"Hey, no fair, you're out of peanut butter and jelly," Danny mumbled and then yawned. His eyelids were starting to pull downwards.

“Well, you seem rather tired," Dr. West said, ignoring his complaint. "I will take you to where you will be staying during your time at our facility,” she said, helping him to his feet and taking some of his weight for him as she led him to the door.

“You say that like I just rented a room in a luxury hotel,” Danny replied sarcastically, but unsurprisingly, Dr. West ignored him. 

She led him to the glass door that hissed open, and then he was being set down in a wheelchair. 

“Did you put somethin’ in my sandwich?” Danny slurred sleepily, but he didn’t get a reply.

“How was your talk, Dr. West?” 

That was a familiar voice… Dr. Robin-son. Robinson? Robbie…

“ _Very_ informative. I believe the cocktail Dr. Jameson injected him with worked quite well, despite its slightly delayed effects. He was much less aggressive and defensive and very compliant during our discussion. Almost child-like, actually,” Dr. West said. Danny tried to pick his head up to look at her, but he couldn’t get the momentum. His head was _sooo_ heavy.

“And the sedative in the sandwich? I hope the effects were delayed enough for you to finish your talk.” There’s that _voice_ again speaking so quiet as if for him not to hear. Who was that, again? Oh, Robbie! 

He must have said that out loud, because the voice chuckled a little. 

“It was perfect. Delayed enough for us to finish our talk and it seems he will even get introduced to his new lair a bit before he falls asleep. Nice work, Dr. Robinson.”

“Yeah,” Danny mumbled, happy for some reason about the mention of his lair. There might be more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches there. “N-ice… work, Robbie.”

“Do you think we gave him too strong of a dosage, Dr. West?”

“Perhaps, but it’s quite comical don’t you think?” 

There were murmurs of consent and quiet chuckles and then they were stopping. 

“Well, here we are, Phantom,” Dr. West said. Then, there was the sound of a man talking to Dr. West before Danny was lifted out of the wheelchair and carried away from the two women. He was set down on something soft and then left alone. 

It was quite dark where he was, but he felt safe and happy, so he finally surrendered and closed his eyes. 

* * *

Report 001 - General Report

Dr. Elizabeth Wraith West

Subject: DP_002 AKA ‘Phantom’

The capture of Phantom was entirely successful. The ecto-parasites leeched the energy from his core and left him in a weakened, fractured state. Like predicted, the ecto-parasites are the key to taking down powerful ghosts. Phantom, a class nine spector capable of leveling buildings with only the use of his voice, was successfully captured with no report of any casualties, civilian or agent. 

The ecto-parasites are more powerful than originally predicted and will be tested further to see just what class ghost they can be effective against. 

The spector, Phantom, was kept sedated for 47 hours after capture, to allow his core to gain a semblance of strength and stability. However, his core showed no improvement after the 47 hours so we woke him, planning to speak with him briefly to allow him to accept his capture and decide to cooperate with our staff. 

He reacted negatively to OPERATION Dehumanize and was forcefully sedated for another 4 hours while the medical staff attained samples and ran tests listed in detail in Report DP_002/M_001. (His negative reaction to OPERATION Dehumanize is discussed in greater detail under file DP_002/ODH)

Before his awakening, he was given a mixture of mood stabilizers and anxiety medication described in Report DP_002/M_001 and DP_002/M_010. Report DP_002/M_010 is a record of any drugs or therapies given to Phantom and the full report of the effects had upon him. This record exists to aid us in discovering what medications will work best if the subject resists and refuses to cooperate. 

The medication applied kept subject compliant and content. His behavior devolved into that of a child and he was much more trusting and willing to cooperate. Subject discussed his previous life, but appeared to lie about what caused his death. He also refused to state his name, even with the effects of the drugs. Further research is required. Further testing with medication for compliance has also been requested.

Finally, the subject was taken to his new ‘lair’ where he will remain for his duration to aid in the regrowth of his core. The subject accepted his lair (it is important to note that the subject was under the influence of the aforementioned cocktail along with a mild sedative) and fell asleep.

It appears after only two hours of watching the subject sleep, the bruises lining his skin have faded to a pale yellow. Whether this is due to the presence of food or the presence of a lair is unknown. Further testing required. 

The regrowth of the subject’s core will continue until the point where he is stable enough to remain viable after undergoing vivisection. This study is necessary in order to move forward with the research. Until then, multiple scans and non-invasive tests have been completed and are attached to the Report DP_002/M_001.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for all of the talk about peanut butter sandwiches lol. It's really late here and I'm starving :)
> 
> Please drop a comment if you liked the report at the end of the chapter! I'm considering adding them to the end of most, if not all, future chapters because I don't believe Danny will be able to be a very reliable narrator for much longer. 
> 
> Until next time!


	3. The Second Encounter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the longer wait for the chapter! I had exams this week, but thank GOD they're over with!
> 
> Here's chapter 3, I hope you enjoy!

Dr. West was never one to back down from a challenge. No, she was always the one to accept any challenge and tackle any problem that has come her way; this new ghost will be no different, she thinks as she finishes pinning her hair up. She appraises herself in the mirror. The specter, _Phantom_ , was the biggest opportunity she’s ever had, and she was determined to not mess it up and watch his case be assigned to a different team.

This was why she was out of bed and out of her house before the sun even breached the horizon. There was no more room for error, she reminded herself while slipping behind the wheel of her vehicle and beginning her drive to the lab. This was her favorite time of day. It was just her, her thoughts, and the silence of the car. This was where her best planning happened.

She thinks back to her primary analysis of her newest subject when she had incorrectly assumed that Phantom, as the ghost calls itself, was just an ordinary ghost that was uniquely powerful. However, once she got to sit and speak to the ghost, she knew he was different. Not only did she notice that he was _incredibly_ adept at mimicking human behavior, but that he seemed to truly believe that he was human, or at least a sentient being, which is why it was really tricky for her to remember to call the ghost an ‘it’ rather than a person.

During their conversation, his face displayed aggressive ticks, fear hidden through humor, and a multitude of other very complex emotions that were normal for a human child or adolescent. He must have been studying human behavior closely and for a _very_ long time in order to not only replicate the facial cues, but to understand when to use them to the point where they seemed to be second nature. 

It was extremely impressive, in a way, for him to replicate humanity so well. It was also disturbing and meant that he could blend in with humans if needed. It must be one of his strongest Obsessions for him to dedicate so much time and energy into pretending to be human. It was an admittedly dangerous obsession because he could trick people into believing that he was more than just a pile of ectoplasm that had encountered a past consciousness strong enough to hold a form. He already had _human_ allies that were willing to fight other ghosts by his side as if _he_ weren’t the most dangerous ghost in Amity. 

She, admittedly, was just like his allies and had felt herself begin to fall for his tricks. His pretend breathing and act of brain hypoxia, or becoming ‘high’ from the lack of oxygen, had really made her second guess herself. What ghost would know how humans behave when deprived of oxygen? 

She shuddered at the thought, wondering what lengths this ghost went to in order to learn how to become ‘human’. 

His desire for human food and his body’s apparent ability to actually _ingest_ the food had also caused her to doubt her initial beliefs and she caught herself slipping and treating him more like she would a child than an enemy. It was disturbing just how easily this ghost made her, a person who _despises_ ghosts and sees them as nothing more than a problem that she needs to solve, feel, even just for a moment, that she was talking to a child rather than an intelligent, manipulative, and dangerously powerful entity.

When he had been drugged, it was difficult to see him as an enemy. He was weak, at the moment, and was no doubt using the human traits he had learned to try and buy himself time until he was strong enough to attempt escape. Still, it was hard to view an injured and weakened apparition wearing the face of a child as a true threat. Yes, it was almost charming to watch him get excited over a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and speak nonsense while drugged and being taken to his containment facility, but she had to remind herself that he was an entity capable of leveling buildings with just his voice alone. 

She learned through research done by her predecessor that he was not only obsessed about appearing human, but also about protecting Amity from other entities. Although, perhaps he had just made the entirety of Amity his lair to defend, which would be unusual, but, seeing as he is a level nine spector, still feasible. This theory would explain Phantom claiming to not have a lair and would be easier to understand than him having two different obsessions. 

As for her job? She would understand Phantom. She would learn every physical trait, both inside and out. She would learn why his core seemed more resistant than other ghosts and why he seemed to not need to return to the ghost zone to survive like all of the other spectors. She would learn how he managed to eat food and whether or not he had organs, and if he did, then she would map out every similarity or difference between him and a human body. 

She would learn of every thought he had and would be able to explain his actions and his obsessions. But most importantly, she would learn his weaknesses. He was an abnormality. Most ghosts that were as powerful as him remained sheltered in the ghost zone and did not interact with humans. If she could learn how to harm _him_ , then she would be able to harm _any_ ghost, no matter their strength.

Her fingers thrummed excitedly against the steering wheel at the thought of all that she would accomplish in the next several weeks.

The ghost had stated that he had organs, and although she doubts that, she was still excited about being able to open him up and see just what made a ghost this powerful and intelligent tick.

There were so many questions her new subject could answer. Depending on whether he was actually correct about being more ‘human’, and she was using that term _very_ loosely, then he could be an entirely new species of ghost! Perhaps a species that rarely appears outside of the realm of the ghosts and is naturally as powerful as Phantom. It would make the ghost not so much of an anomaly and more of a young ghost who entered the human realm by fluke. 

Unfortunately, the tests done by her best team of scientists all had the same, unexplainable results. His core was so weak that he shouldn’t exist anymore. There was a logical explanation as for why he hasn’t dissolved into a pile of ectoplasm since his core, the thing housing the consciousness, was all but obliterated by her parasites. She would learn why he was able to still exist when no other known ghost, and she’s tested _hundreds_ , would be able to survive after that much damage.

She pulled into the guarded facility, showing her ID and allowing the men to search her car before clearing her for entry. She pulled into her designated spot before exiting her car and entering the massive white building before her. 

Since she would have to wait until her subject’s core had regained enough strength to survive the more invasive tests she had planned, she decided that, for now, she would work on breaking his obsession with humanity. She scanned her ID, and the door opened, allowing her to enter her branch of the building. She looked around, spotting the now empty clear cylinder that had previously housed Phantom and the dozens upon dozens of computer screens filled with images and test results already gathered from him. There was much to learn indeed.

But first, she would need to implement a new rule. She approached her office that was connected to the large circular lab and entered, closing the door and starting up her computer. After her computer was started, she projected her image to the large screen in the lab.

“Attention, please,” she said pleasantly. “I would like to implement a new rule regarding our subject. Although most of you are not yet here, I would like to say it on the big screen as well as through email to get my point across clearly. The subject’s obsession with humanity is to be terminated, and in order to do that, we cannot indulge his delusions. Any scientist to treat him any differently than they would any other ectoplasmic entity will be kicked off of this research unit. His obsession is a very dangerous one, and we must treat it seriously and rid him of it _before_ he regains his strength. Thank you.” She disconnects from the big screen and turns to look at the scientists to see what they think about her declaration. 

Most were nodding their heads or continuing their work as if the notion of him being anything but an ectoplasmic entity was absurd. There was only one scientist that seemed troubled at the declaration: Dr. Robinson. 

Dr. West would need to keep a close eye on her to ensure she did not impede their mission of eradicating his obsession. She was the very first of the researchers to buy-in to his delusion, and if she did so again, then she would be removed from his case. This entity was far too powerful to take any risks and far too manipulative to let anyone but those with the strongest of wills to have contact with the ghost.

She grabbed a couple the of reports and results from the tests that had been done on Phantom that were left on her desk and poured over them. His ectoplasm was much thinner and appeared to be watered down by plasma. It was remarkably similar to how humans’ blood is primarily composed of plasma to ensure thin and runny blood. Most of the tests did not reach a conclusive decision and supported the notion that Phantom was drastically unique compared to all of the other ghosts the GIW has ever tested. 

He was going to be the highlight of her career. He would be why she was going to be known as the lead researcher to discover and learn about an entirely new species of ghosts. How incredible!

She stood, reports in hand, and decided to go visit her subject that would soon make her one of the most well-known and respected scientists in the GIW. 

Her strategy moving forward with Phantom was simple. While she would be working on breaking his obsession, her lead research team would be rebuilding his core, and the end product would be an unusually powerful ghost known for fighting other ghosts with no obsession or direction. Under her supervision, he could be weaponized in a matter of _weeks_ if she played her cards right. His consciousness is mere leftovers from a past life and would be easily manipulated since there is no higher brain function present. Ghosts are simply remnants of people who meet the standards to feed an obsession for their consciousness even afterlife. But that doesn’t make the human ‘alive’ so much as it leaves them on a one minded track for the rest of their existence.

She reaches the one-way mirror facing into Phantom’s containment room, or ‘lair.’ He was still asleep, but the drug would wear off sometime this hour if they had correctly estimated the dosage. They were drugging an entity very different and more powerful than most that they dealt with.

She looked at the white-haired, young ghost lying curled up with a blanket on the floor of his lair and couldn’t help but smile. He was her ticket to revolutionizing the way they hunt ghosts. Forget her ectoparasites... sure they could take down Phantom with ease, but if they could turn _Phantom_ onto a one minded track to fight other ectoplasmic entities, he could be the deciding factor in the GIW’s war on ghosts.

And if she could make him into a ghost killer that remained in the ghost zone? It would be like releasing a shark into a koi pond. 

She stared into the containment room, smiling devilishly at the thought of what the small, unassuming ghost before her would mean for her career. Despite the young ghost being powerful, she was sure that she would best him in their game of wills. With the drug Dr. Robinson had created to calm Phantom down, he was all but a mere child she could bend to her will.

* * *

When Danny finally woke up, he was surprised at how much better he felt, despite a dry mouth and a headache. The headache could most likely be attributed to whatever drugs they had dosed him with yesterday. He needed to avoid those at all costs. 

He glanced down at his arms to check himself and noted that he was no longer see-through and barely had a bruise on him. So either he was unconscious for a lot longer than he thought, or food and sleep were really all he needed to kickstart his healing. 

Maybe since his core was so damaged, he wasn’t healing until his human half was strong enough to support him? Eh… That’s more a Sam question. She was the one weirdly invested in his core and obsessions and everything else that he finds just a tad creepy. 

His core felt a lot better too. Kinda the same way it did after he had battled Pariah Dark, not necessarily injured, but utterly exhausted. He doubted he would be able to use his powers much at the moment, even if he did manage to get the power dampener or whatever it was they had on his neck off. Still, he felt much less vulnerable with his core not threatening to shatter. 

Now that he knew he wasn’t going to simply stop existing at the slightest touch, he could finally start working on _getting the hell outta here._

He looked around, seeing what felt like one of those reptile terrariums. There was damp, gross moss covering the bottom of what he assumed they intended to be his lair. There were fake branches and trees positioned as if he were meant to _climb_ the damn things as well as some weird looking plants and a little plastic container filled with swirling green ectoplasm. There was also a little fake rock cave in the corner. Maybe that was where he was supposed to sleep? 

Damn, when he’s not drugged out of his mind or strapped to a table, these people seemed much less scary and much more ignorant. It was almost laughable how clueless they were. They were kinda like his parents; they knew enough about ghosts to kill and maim them, but hardly anything else. 

Who gives a ghost ectoplasm as if it’s water? The little ectoplasm pool thing was honestly hilarious. Did other ghosts need ectoplasm like that to survive? Danny didn’t know, but he sure as hell didn’t and thought it seemed pretty stupid. Even these morons should know that normal ghosts feed on emotions.

Although this habitat _would_ house the white cobra ghost snake he’s encountered a few times quite well. It’s got the gross humidity thing down and the weird fake trees, and the moss carpet that makes his feet damp… Definitely a snake-like habitat.

Danny stands, happy that it doesn’t hurt to stretch, and once again relieved that the little thing on his neck kept him from changing back to his human form while he slept. His identity was still safe. Although if he _could_ turn human, he would have his cellphone and could just call Sam and Tucker.

He makes his way over to the mirror that he assumes is one of those one-way mirror things like in the detective shows. It did serve to show him his reflection where he could see that other than his messy hair and slightly bruised face, he looked the same as before he was captured. 

He knocked on the glass, wondering if someone would be stupid enough to just open the door so he could jump them and figure out a way outta this hell hole. 

Unfortunately, he was ignored and so he walked over to the little cave thing and sat, instead, focusing his attention on prying the little sucky thing on his neck off. It seemed as if it had dug deeply into his skin like a tick and he couldn’t remove it without pulling out a chunk of his neck. 

He had just felt ectoplasm start to bleed around the thing where he had pulled too hard when a hiss signified that the door to his cage was opening. He whirled around to face the agents entering, glad at only seeing three of them. He paused for a moment, debating his chances in a fight. The door, however, remained open after they entered and wasn’t closing. Was this a trap?

Danny pulled himself out of the little cave and stood, staring past the armed guards to see that his room led to what looked to be an observation room on the other side of his mirror. 

The guards seemed to be waiting for him to attack, and so he did. He charged and was immediately met with them drawing their guns. He closed the distance, getting close so their guns wouldn’t really be worth much and punched the nearest agent in the face before ducking underneath his arm and trying to squeeze through the rapidly closing door. He reached forward, a grin stretching across his face at his luck, when he was met with a wall of electricity. He screamed and reared back, holding his smoking hand close to him. 

His room had a ghost shield? That would make sense with why the door hadn’t closed. This was them trying to teach him that he couldn’t escape. It sure as hell was going to make his escape a _lot_ harder. He whirled to face the agents slowly closing him in. If he couldn’t get out, then the agents weren’t either. He was going to make them regret entering his room. One of the agents tried to grab him, and he jerked away and then had to dodge a blast shot by another agent. 

He tried to fire back on reflex, sad to see nothing more than a small spark of power flicker through his hand. He growled and lunged for another agent, shoving him to the ground before whirling on the other two. They both charged him and tackled him to the ground. 

The two agents were fighting to keep him on the ground, but Danny fought savagely, desperate to not be pinned. The third agent had recovered and appeared in Danny’s line of sight. They grabbed him as he tried to punch one of the agents on top of him and forced him onto his stomach. 

They were pressing him down into the floor, and Danny fought viciously to not go down. He was _not_ going to be injected with whatever the hell they had given him last time, and he was not going to be carted off to the nearest dissection table. He fought, ignoring the small aches his core was giving him and continuing to try and push the three heavy agents off. 

He felt something cold press into his side before a sharp stab of electricity shot through him. He felt a small scream tear its way through his throat and his arms gave out, giving the three agents a chance to pin him to the ground. 

They stayed like that for several long seconds. Danny, panting and twitching with the leftover shocks, and the three agents pressing bruises into his skin as they put their body weight on top of him to secure him to the ground.

Danny had just opened his mouth to ask what the _hell_ the GIW was feeding these morons when Danny heard heels click as someone entered the room.

Dr. West appeared, a smug look on her face as she again dragged in a chair and a briefcase. She did the same thing she did last time, sitting down and taking her time opening the briefcase and utterly ignoring him. 

He opened his mouth to question whether or not she planned on doing anything or if she was just going to waste his afterlife too, but was thwarted as the same damn muzzle was attached to his face by one of the agents. Well, no, this wasn’t the same one. Sure, this one also didn’t allow him to breathe, but it felt as if it was attached to the little silver disc that prevented him from using his powers. 

Since he had been messing with the little disc, it hurt, and every time he moved his head, the muzzle would tug on the disc sending a small spark of pain through him. 

Despite the muzzle not allowing him to breathe, he was calm and not panicking, so it wasn’t difficult to adjust to. He could go a really long time without air, but eventually, his human half’s weaknesses would start to bleed over into his ghost form. So even as a ghost, he would eventually need air, especially with a damaged core. But for now, he was okay. 

Danny was focusing on keeping himself calm and not breathing since it was still quite natural for him to want to breathe. After several long and quiet moments, he was somewhat used to it and turned his focus back to Dr. West.

She was still studying the files in her hands, legs crossed with an utterly calm expression on her face as if someone wasn’t being held down against their will not five feet away from her. Finally, she looked up at him, and they stared at one another before Dr. West finally spoke.

“Gentlemen, would you mind restraining the ghost so I can assess it alone?” Dr. West said without looking up. That was different. She hadn’t called him an ‘it’ before, did she? 

Danny was hoisted into a sitting position despite his muffled curses and frantic struggling. His arms were forced behind his back, where they were chained and attached to the floor of the cell. After he was muzzled and chained to the ground, the agents filed out of the room, each giving Dr. West a small nod on their way out and one handing her a key, supposedly for the manacles. 

Soon, it was just Dr. West and Danny. Sadly, he figured she wasn’t here to give him another peanut butter and jelly sandwich. 

She set the file in her hand down and focused all of her attention on him. He tried to glare at her but was sure it lost most of its malice due to the ridiculous muzzle strapped to his face. 

Finally, Dr. West broke the silence and addressed him. “Hello, Phantom. I’m here to speak to you about our upcoming plans for you,” Dr. West said with a smile as she uncrossed her legs and leaned forwards. “For one, your current obsession of replicating humanity will no longer be tolerated or enabled. From now on, you will not be allowed to mimic humanity in any way.” She paused and gave him another smile before laughing softly and continuing: “And yes, this includes breathing. However, I am aware that you are an intelligent entity and will still require you to converse with the psychology team we have as well as answer my questions. Do you understand?” 

She stared at him, and Danny rolled his eyes and looked away, preferring to stare at a fake bush than to look at her. Wasn’t she the one feeding him human food _yesterday?_

“Hmm, I understand that you do not want to give up your obsession, but I need for you to understand that it is dangerous,” she said in what Danny assumed was supposed to be a soothing tone. 

He still ignored her, glaring hatefully at the bush. She thought he was _obsessed_ with being human? And so was now going to slowly kill him by suffocating him in the muzzle? What a way to die. 

When he still didn’t answer, Dr. West sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Perhaps it would be better if we could talk about it, hm?” Dr. West reached into her lab coat and pulled out a remote, and Danny couldn’t help but to look as she pressed a button that retracted the muzzle. 

He must have looked confused because she laughed softly before addressing him again. “Not that you need to know, but this muzzle is connected to the ecto-filtrater attached to your neck. Now, why don’t we talk about your obsession?”

“I’m not obsessed with pretending to be human if that’s what you’re asking,” Danny said angrily. 

This seemed to make Dr. West pause and consider his words. While she was silent, Danny decided he needed to elaborate before she pieced something together that was too close to the truth of him only being half-dead.

“I-I only died like two years ago. It just feels normal to breathe. And I like food. It’s less creepy than feeding off of emotions and energy,” he muttered while tugging on his chains. Dr. West didn’t respond and seemed to be carefully thinking over his words. 

“And why do you sleep?” She finally said. 

Now it was Danny’s time to consider her words and think of how to respond. “I don’t know,” he finally said, not knowing how to excuse his ghost form requiring sleep because of his human half. 

Dr. West didn’t seem upset that he wasn’t able to answer and continued with her questions. “Do you realize that your mimicry of humanity and habit of remaining in the human world is endangering the very city you claim to protect? The rate of ghost attacks has skyrocketed since you arrived in town.” Dr. West said. 

“Look, lady, I’m not gonna sit and have a conversation with you while chained to the fucking ground. Why do you even have me chained? I wasn’t chained yesterday,” Danny said while glaring at Dr. West, but she seemed unaffected.

“Well, you _did_ just attack three armed guards, so I think it is acceptable to restrain you to prevent more violent outbursts. And yesterday you were quite injured, and as you just showed earlier, you are no longer injured enough to prevent you from attacking people,” Dr. West said before continuing so as not to give Danny a chance to protest. “Now, what I said about you living among humans being dangerous-”

Danny interrupted. “Before you go and blame me for all of the ghost attacks on Amity, have you ever considered that the creation of the Fenton portal, you know the one that allows ghosts to enter the human world, could be the cause of the increase?” Danny asked while straining against his restraints again. “Having you ever heard of the correlation doesn’t mean causation, lady? Just because I try and stop ghost attacks and make them stay in the portal doesn’t mean I’m the reason they’re here!” Danny yelled but then immediately cringed.

Well, technically, _he_ was the one that activated the portal… so it _was_ his fault that all of the ghosts invaded Amity. But he was also the one to fight them and put them back… 

“Alright, well that doesn’t change the fact that most ghosts seem to come to Amity just to challenge you,” Dr. West said before opening a folder and looking at its contents. “The ghost known as ‘Skulker,’ for example, seems to only come to Amity to attack you. The Wisconsin ghost was only ever sighted in Amity when battling you. The ghost that rides a motorcycle and has a dark shadow-like creature frequents Amity only to challenge you. Technus, the Lunch Lady ghost, even Freakshow and his circus of ghosts all came to Amity for one reason: you,” Dr. West finished before looking at Danny. 

Danny couldn’t quite meet her eye. Was there any truth to what she said? Now that he thought about it, Amity would probably have a lot less ghost attacks if ghosts and psychopaths like Freakshow didn’t target him. When he didn’t respond, Dr. West continued.

“Even the adolescent that refers to herself as the ‘Red Huntress’ only exists to hunt you, Phantom. She alone is reason enough to prove your existence in Amity is dangerous. A child is trying to kill you and, in return, could hurt a lot of people or even herself,” Dr. West said in an uncharacteristically soft voice. “You claim to care about human life, so you should see how you _are_ dangerous, even if you don’t intend to be.”

Danny gave up on pulling against his restraints. Was he really a danger for Amity? “I-I’ve protected the town from a lot of ghost attacks,” Danny said half-heartedly. 

“We know, Phantom. That’s partially why instead of killing you, we decided to rehabilitate you here. You desire to be a tutelary spirit, yes? One that protects people rather than harm them?” Dr. West asked, her sole focus on Danny, who was shifting uncomfortably on the floor. 

“I mean, yeah. I _have_ been protecting Amity. I-I patrol every night and fight to keep ghosts in the ghost zone,” Danny responded, forcing himself to believe it. Sam always said he was a hero, and surely she wasn’t wrong, right?

“Despite the fact that a lot of those fights wouldn’t take place without your presence, I do understand that you’ve been successful at thwarting several large scale attacks, and for that, I will say thank you,” Dr. West said while setting her files down on top of her briefcase before standing. “However, the GIW has spent the past year vigorously preparing our forces to do this task for you. It will be safer for humans to protect humans in the human world, Phantom, but I still think you have great potential for aiding humanity. That is what you want, isn’t it?” She asked while approaching him. 

Danny looked up at her but didn’t care to reply. His thoughts were churning inside of his head, partially arguing that he’s a _hero,_ and it’s _his job_ to protect Amity, but also realizing that ghosts often come to the human realm just to fight him.

“I understand it’s a lot to think about, Phantom, but whether you want to realize it or not, I do care about what you think. Now, I have another question. If mimicking humanity is not your obsession, then what is it?” Dr. West said while walking towards the ectoplasm pool. 

Danny stayed quiet, not quite wanting to share that tidbit of information with her. It could be used against him just like so many of his enemies have done in the past. 

“That’s alright, Phantom, it’s been quite a long day, hasn’t it? Lot’s of information to think about,” she said while kneeling and scooping some of the ectoplasm into her hands. “I’ll come back later to speak with you, but I want you to think about what I’ve said, alright?” She asked while bringing the ectoplasm over to Danny. 

She kneeled beside him and dipped two of her fingers into the ectoplasm before bringing them up to his neck. Danny leaned back and away from her, but he couldn’t really go anywhere. She spread the ectoplasm around the silver disc on his neck where he had pulled the skin and made himself bleed. 

The ectoplasm seemed to be making him heal almost instantly, and Danny was stunned into silence. Ectoplasm healed ghosts? Wasn’t that kinda like their blood? Should he be creeped out? 

Dr. West stayed quiet for a long moment, but then rose back to her feet and changed the topic. “You look to be in much better condition, today. Do you feel more stable?”

He just blinked at her, wondering what the hell that just was. 

“How- how did the ectoplasm do that?” He finally asked, ignoring her question. 

This seemed to startle her too, and she sat back down in her chair and studied him for a moment before replying. “It’s purified ectoplasm. Why do you think the ghost zone is created almost entirely of this stuff? It enables ghosts to grow strong and survive fights and gives them the energy to leave their realm and adventure here. Have you not spent time in the ghost zone yourself?”

“I- uh, don’t really like staying there since most of the ghosts that live there hate me for putting them there in the first place,” Danny said while glancing over to the ectoplasm pool. “So that thing over there,” Danny said while gesturing to the pool, “isn’t like a dogbowl of ectoplasm?”

This made Dr. West actually laugh. “N-no, dear. Some ghosts have to, uh, bathe in it to strengthen their cores.” She looked at him thoughtfully, shaking her head. “You know, to be a ghost, you don’t know much about yourself.”

“Well, I know enough to know that this room looks more suitable for a turtle than a ghost. What’s up with the soggy moss and fake trees? And how come I’ve never had to ‘bathe’ in ectoplasm before?”

Dr. West seemed somewhat annoyed with the question, but answered anyway. “The ghost zone, since it is made of ectoplasm, is basically the same thing. If you go there often enough, you wouldn’t need an ectobath in order to maintain your form, but you might now, especially since you’re weakened and can’t go to the ghost zone. It would most likely be beneficial to your core either way,” Dr. West explained.

“But I rarely go to the ghost zone and have never bathed in this stuff. So?” Danny said somewhat sarcastically.

Dr. West didn’t reply and instead looked at the ectoplasmic pool somewhat doubtfully as she considered his words. 

Danny made a sour face at the prospect of being submerged in ectoplasm and in the fact that he may have just revealed a small hint that he shouldn’t have. He probably doesn’t have to have the excess ectoplasm because his human half helps keep him stable. “And the fake trees?” Danny inquired to change the subject.

Dr. West gave him an irritated look before responding. “You’re a ghost. You reside mainly in Amity, so it’s not a far stretch to assume you stay near the park. You’re frequently spotted there and the school which is very close to the park. Besides, according to our other… _guests_ , most ghosts prefer dark lairs and a lot prefer their lairs to resemble forests. Do you have any more questions?”

“What other ghosts do you have here?” Danny asked, knowing she wouldn’t answer.

“Oh, I’m afraid I can’t tell you that Phantom. I do believe it is my turn to ask some more questions. How is your core? Does it feel stronger?” Dr. West asked while pushing her glasses higher up her nose.

“I don’t know. Your ecto-parasites sure did a hell of a number on it,” Danny said, frowning at her. He needed to remember that she was the reason he was injured and why he was captured. She was _scary_ easy to talk to, but he needs to keep in mind that she’s just here for information. He needed to stop playing nice. She should be treated like an agent of the GIW because that’s exactly what she is. 

He glared at her once more, which seemed to catch her off guard, “Why am I telling you _anything?_ Why do you even care whether my core is okay? You’re the one that hurt it!”

“Well, Phantom, you speaking to us was part of our agreement, is it not? You cooperate and we won’t keep you sedated,” she stated with a calm smile. 

“Seems like you’ve already broken your end of the deal. You drugged me yesterday!” Danny said angrily. 

“Yes, I did. Your core was unstable and you had to be relocated to this room to aid in its recovery. You were sedated to keep you from attempting an escape and damaging your core any worse. Now, how is your core?” She responded slowly, as if speaking to a child. 

“I’m not telling you anything,” Danny spat at her, pulling harshly against his restraints. 

“Alright, I guess I will have to see for myself.” Dr. West reached back for the remote and pressed another button and the muzzle was suddenly replaced over his mouth. She raised the watch on her wrist to her mouth and spoke into it. “Requesting team four for ectoplasmic energy reading.”

Before the words had even left her mouth, the door to his enclosure hissed open and two people entered. Danny identified the older man as the one that was nice to Dr. Robinson his first day here, but he couldn’t remember the man’s name. For some reason, Danny wasn’t as afraid of this man as he probably should be. He _needs_ to be afraid of and hate _all_ of the agents. They’re keeping him here like a fucking _lab rat._ And here he is having an entire fucking conversation with his captor. He felt like an idiot. 

One second he’s telling her everything she wants to know, but as soon as he doesn’t comply, she’s quick to force her way because he’s nothing to her. Just an interesting pile of ectoplasm. He needs to be wary of that.

The scientists both entered and knelt down next to him, setting down a small tray of tools between them. 

Neither addressed him as they began to work, but the older man seemed almost apologetic as he lifted the gown thing Danny was wearing. The other agent grabbed a scalpel and pressed it to his skin. 

Danny tried to gasp as an incision was made on his lower abdomen, but the muzzle prevented it, and, instead, his lungs seized slightly from lack of air before he could calm himself again. 

The older man picked up what looked to be a thermometer before pressing the thing _inside_ of him through the incision. Danny groaned in pain behind the mask, feeling utterly violated at having something shoved _inside_ of him. 

These people were the monsters, Danny thought as the thermometer pressed more insistently inside of him. He’s the _hero_ , despite what Dr. West said. He needed to escape and return to his town. It was unguarded. He felt his core churn angrily at the thought of them not being able to protect those he loved.

The older man shot him another apologetic look, but pressed the thermometer deeper inside. Danny choked on a sob, but quickly suppressed it and instead focused on Dr. West, who was sitting calmly in front of him, once again looking over her files. 

The older man wiggled the instrument around, and Danny gritted his teeth, trying to stay quiet but failing as the instrument touched _something_ inside of him. He felt his core plummet to an icy and fearful energy, and he screamed behind the mask and tried to pull away, but the other doctor was now trying to keep him still. 

Danny felt tears prick his eyes as the thermometer thing kept pressing against whatever was inside of him, but after several long and torturous moments, the thing beeped and was instantly withdrawn. 

“The, uh, core is much more stable, Dr. West, but still not fully repaired. Energy levels indicate that the subject is progressing as predicted and will be fully healed within our current timeframe,” the older man spoke as he read whatever was shown on the instrument now coated in Danny’s ectoplasmic blood. 

Dr. West nodded, but didn’t look up. The older man began wiping off the instrument, and the other doctor was coating the incision with something, but Danny didn’t care about them anymore. He hung his head, not wanting any of them to see his face yet. 

Sure, it was only a cut, and he had received much more than that in any regular fight, but the whole thing left him feeling dirty. He couldn’t _stop_ them from doing it, and they didn’t really seem to care what he thought, despite what Dr. West said earlier during their conversation. 

He knew they saw him as nothing more than a ghost, but to actually be _treated_ as if he wasn’t a person was unnerving, to say the least. Just like the first time the doctors swarmed him… This was only going to get worse for him.

He stayed still and quiet as the doctors packed up their tools and left, once again leaving just him and Dr. West.

“Well, Phantom, it seems your core is recovering nicely from the ecto-parasites. That’s good,” Dr. West said in a pleased tone that sent a small shiver down Danny’s spine. 

He raised his head to glare at Dr. West, but she simply laughed at him. 

“Oh, don’t give me that look, Phantom. I _did_ ask you first. You were the one that would rather have an energy monitor pressed against your core than to continue our conversation,” Dr. West explained before returning her attention back to her files. 

That thing had been touching his _core?!_ He thought a ghost’s core was more of an energy thing. Like it existed and stuff, but it was _tangible?_ Like another organ? 

He dropped his gaze from Dr. West, who was once again ignoring him, and instead returned to pulling against the restraints holding him to the floor. He grabbed unto the chains and pulled as hard as he could, but they wouldn’t budge. 

He would have _liked_ to sit and take a few deep breaths before straining against the manacles again, but he couldn’t fucking do that, could he? He shot another glare at Dr. West, feeling anger rising in him. 

It was _her_ ecto-parasites that had been keeping him up at night and busy during the day and slowly exhausting him for _weeks_ before they finally led him to _whatever_ the hell that monstrosity was that basically tried to melt him and absorb his core. Then, it was her that directed all the scientists to poke and prod him and shove instruments in him. She called him an ‘ _it’_ and sat there and ignored him as if he were a piece of furniture. She muzzled him and kept him from fucking _breathing!_

And she had the _audacity_ to sit and _converse_ with him! He was even angrier at himself for thinking she was anything other than a scientist. Maybe he was slightly used to it because of his parents, but _still._

Danny pulled against the restraints again, letting his rage fuel him. He wasn’t going to just sit here and allow them to treat him like some lab rat. 

He kept pulling, clenching his teeth, and continuing despite the burn in his arms and how the disc on his neck seemed to be slowly draining him of energy. He heard the chains creak and opened his eyes to see Dr. West, now looking at him with slight concern on her face.

 _Good._ Danny thought as he continued to pull on the chains. He watched as she pulled out the little remote connected to the thing on his neck and pressed a button. Suddenly, his strength was draining rapidly. The harder he fought and the more he exerted himself, the faster the energy was being stolen from him.

“Do you know how that device on your neck works?” Dr. West said as she relaxed back in her chair, absentmindedly looking over another file. Danny pulled once more against the chains, but soon he had to stop. His energy was depleting at an alarming pace. His head drooped, and he mumbled a curse at the doctor through his muzzle.

“It filters the energy from your core. I enable you to keep most of your energy for the sake of your core being able to repair itself. However, I can also filter _out_ the energy your core makes similar to how my parasites drained you,” she said while Danny raised his head to glare at the woman. “It’s basically your kill switch. How far can a ghost get with no energy, right?” She said with a chuckle.

“Alright, well, it was very nice to speak with you, Phantom. I will be back later for a few tests and to have another chat,” Dr. West said as she packed her files back into her briefcase and stood. “Perhaps we can discuss your obsession since you claim it is not mimicking humanity? I would love to know what it is,” she said as she walked forward and then circled behind him, swiftly unlocking the restraints and stepping back. 

Danny _thought_ he was going to attack her once he was released, maybe try and hold her hostage, but he almost face-planted into the floor as soon as the restraints weren’t forcing him into a seated position. He barely managed to catch himself, but felt as if he hadn’t slept in a week and just spent the last several hours fighting. Just how much energy did that thing ‘filter out’ in those few moments?

Dr. West left the room, the tell-tale clicking of her heels and the scrape of her chair being dragged behind her leaving Danny with a sick feeling in his stomach. He struggled to push himself a few feet away to the entrance of his little cave. He rested against the cool rock as he rubbed his wrists. 

After several long moments, he lifted his gown thing to peer at the incision on his stomach. It was coated with a white cream, but was still steadily trickling ectoplasm. He wanted to sigh, but the muzzle prevented it. Instead, he pushed himself further into the cave and out of eyesight of the window to his room. 

Once there, he felt somewhat less like a bug under a microscope and curled into a ball, the muzzle pressing awkwardly into his face as it rested on the cool ground. 

His situation was only going to get worse from here, wasn’t it?


	4. Another Day in Hell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! 
> 
> This chapter was supposed to be MUCH longer, but I figured it would be better to separate this chapter into two. Also, this story will be a tad longer than I originally intended. 
> 
> So far, it seems to pan out to be about seven chapters in total, but I haven't decided whether to add certain scenes or leave them out. 
> 
> Also, I will be getting my newly repaired art tablet tomorrow and plan to add art either at the end as a separate chapter or at the end of the current chapters. If I add them at the end of existing chapters, I'll let you know in the notes of new chapters. 
> 
> Anyways, I hope you enjoy!

When Phantom went down, Valerie admits that she hesitated to help him. His screams were piercing and the screams of those that came to help him even more so. Still, Phantom, although sometimes helpful, was a massive pain in her ass, and she had been planning to put him down for  _ months. _

Sure he helped keep the ghost scum somewhat under control, but  _ he  _ was the thing attracting them there in the first place!

Seeing him go down that hard was satisfying, even though it made her somewhat sick with herself. Almost immediately after Phantom was down, the GIW appeared from wherever the hell they had been hiding. It had been a trap, an ambush set for Phantom, and he had fallen prey to it. To  _ them. _

Once the GIW were surrounding the location where Phantom was, they sprayed the jelly thing with  _ something, _ and it immediately dissolved into nothing, leaving scorched grass underneath it. They were simultaneously sucking the rest of the jelly monsters into some massive truck. Once the jelly freak was gone along with all of the separate spooks that originated from it, Valerie could get a good look at the ghost notorious for terrorizing her and her family and her  _ town. _

Valerie wanted to hate him and think that he deserved it, but seeing the ghost boy for once actually  _ look _ dead… it was haunting, to say the least. He was flickering in and out of existence, form transparent, and face contorted in pain. He seemed to be out of it, looking up but not recognizing the threat slowly surrounding him. 

“Danny, run!” One of his helpers screamed, and as Valerie looked over, she could see the three people fighting to reach him. She landed next to a group of the Guys in White and watched the events unfold. Phantom was trying to fight, but Valerie already knew there was no way he was going to escape, not in his pitiful condition. 

The three humans aiding the putrid ghost were shoved to the ground and arrested before being hauled back to their feet. The masks they were wearing were ripped off, revealing  _ Sam Manson.  _ Valerie knew that creepy girl would be involved with ghosts  _ somehow _ , but she didn’t imagine it would be with  _ Phantom _ of all ghosts. 

And Tucker Foley? Did Sam drag him into this? The third figure, Jazz Fenton, was also hard to understand. Why the hell would Jazz Fenton want to help Phantom? Was he somehow possessing these people? 

The way they were all screaming and fighting and  _ pleading _ with the GIW was disturbing to listen to. They were acting as if they were losing someone they actually knew and cared for. It was baffling for Valerie. She couldn’t understand why living and breathing people would care for a dead, freaky thing that did nothing but torment this town. 

The ghost tried to fly away, but he was at best all of six feet off of the ground and was moving as if he had a concussion, floating in jagged, slow paces as if trying to reach the people calling out for him. 

He seemed to be trying to speak but was shot down before he could do whatever it was he was trying to do. After he was shot down, he was quickly subdued, and Valerie turned her attention to the agents. They wanted to question her, and she agreed. 

Anything to help the GIW in whatever the hell they wanted to do with this particular ghost. When the GIW offered her the chance to see their operation and see Phantom while he was undergoing what they referred to as ‘reprogramming,’ she was elated and quickly agreed. 

She looked at Phantom’s horrified expression as they muzzled him and injected him with what Valerie assumed was a sedative and almost felt sorry for the poor thing. 

But, no. She wouldn’t feel sorry for this sorry excuse of ectoplasm; he was the reason she hunted ghosts. The only thing she regrets is not being the one to put him down. 

She must have looked angry or upset because one of the agents nudged her and apologized for not leaving him for her to kill. He then spoke of the GIWs plans to use him and mold his Obsessions to help protect Amity. She filtered most of this conversation out. She didn’t care what they did to him. 

Valerie said the only thing she needed to say as she saw Phantom’s limp body being hefted onto one of the agent’s shoulders. She waited for him to get close so he could hear what she said. Just as his head tilted ever so slightly in her direction, his green eyes dimly meeting hers, she spoke aloud what she’d been wanting to say for months: “I’m just glad this one finally got what he deserved for  _ ruining my life _ .”

This is what Valerie believed throughout her interrogation with the GIW, where she shared coffee with and laughed along with the agents as she told them every detail of information about Phantom that she’d collected over her months of hunting him. 

She told them how he liked to pretend he was the hero that protected the city and how he pretended he was  _ human. _ She spoke about him trying to convince her over weeks that he was not dangerous and was just like her. She told them how he had tried to bring her coffee one morning while she was out on a quick patrol and how he asked several times whenever they would see one another whether they could work  _ together _ . 

All of those times had ended with her shooting at him and chasing him off or wounding him and forcing him into a retreat. The few rare times when they  _ did _ end up working together usually resulted in them taking down whatever threat they were facing before she would turn and try to take him down as well. This particular time they had worked together, she had been planning to test out the new rifle Mr. Masters had given her on the damned ghost. 

It wasn’t until after her interrogation with the GIW had ended, and she went to school the next morning did she begin to doubt her beliefs. 

Sam Manson had walked up to Valerie as she was putting books in her locker and punched her right in the face. Despite all of the years of martial arts training, she was too stunned to react. Sam reared back to hit her again, but Tucker was there holding her back. Sam was screaming and thrashing, trying to break free from her friend to get back to Valerie as the girl angrily slammed her locker and glared at the two. 

Valerie’s first reaction was to scream back and ask what the hell the girl thought she was doing. Then, she really looked at the girl. For once, she had no makeup, no purple lipstick, and her hair was messy and unkempt. Her eyes were red and puffy as if she had spent the entire previous night crying. 

“Sam? A-are you okay?” She finally settled on, and the girl paused, and Valerie watched as something inside of the girl broke. Sam went quiet and still, but was shaking. Tucker turned her away and began to lead them down the hall. 

Valerie followed. She felt obligated to. Besides, if they were friends with Phantom, and Phantom knew her identity, then it was possible that he had told them. She needed to do damage control and see what all they knew. 

“Hey! Wait up!” She called to them as she jogged to catch up. Tucker didn’t look back but kept leading Sam until they were safely tucked away in the janitor’s closet. Valerie entered as well, deciding answers were more important than being late to her next class.

“W-what the fuck else do you want,  _ Valerie?!” _ Sam spat at her, tears streaming down her face. It was disconcerting, seeing the girl so torn apart. Tucker, who was still sitting quietly beside her, seemed exhausted, and his eyes looked as if he had been crying too. 

“I wanted to see what was wrong with you. Why did you punch me in the face?” She asked as she absentmindedly touched the spot where she was hit. 

“You-” Sam stopped and seemed to take a moment to compose herself before continuing. “You  _ laughed.  _ They were hurting him and- and- you were laughing. You could have helped. You could have saved him-” Sam trailed off and broke into small sobs that she was obviously fighting to keep silent with. 

“Y-you mean  _ Phantom _ ? That ghost? Why do you care about  _ him _ ?” Valerie questioned, mentally building up a wall against whatever they were about to throw at her. He was a ghost, and she decidedly did not care what happened to ghosts. They could hate her all they wanted to. Her mission was complete.

“Not Phantom! Danny!” Sam yelled angrily before seeming to fold into herself. 

Valerie was trying to process what the hell  _ that _ meant when there was a knock at the door. 

“Guys? Are you in there? Sam?”  _ Jazz. _ That was Jazz Fenton. 

Tucker is the one that called back to her, his voice, uncharacteristically rough and scratchy. 

Why were they so bothered by Phantom being captured? Why did they care? There were so many questions buzzing around Valerie’s head, and she was beginning to feel like she was missing a very large and important piece of the puzzle. 

When Jazz entered, the room seemed to calm considerably. She sat by Sam, and the goth girl seemed to actually accept Jazz’s comfort and use her for support. 

“It’s going to be okay, Sam. Danny will be fine. We’re going to find him. I promise,” Jazz murmured, continuing to try and comfort both her and Tucker. 

“What the hell is wrong with you guys? And why were you helping Phantom the other night?” Valerie finally whispered as the bell signaling they were late for class was ringing overhead. 

Jazz looked up from where she had been comforting Sam and seemed to size Valerie up, appraising her for something. 

Tucker spoke, voice once again rough, but he didn’t look up from his lap. “I think we should tell her. She could help.”

Jazz looked to him and nodded and turned her calculating and surprisingly harsh eyes on Valerie. “Danny Phantom is Danny Fenton,” she said before taking a deep breath. “He died two years ago in a lab accident and his body fused with ectoplasm, creating what is known as a ‘halfa.’ Half-human and half-ghost.” Jazz gave her another harsh look as if expecting Valerie to judge Danny. “There’s more like him. He’s not a freak, and you are going to help us find him, understand?”

Valerie felt like her own personal hell had just frozen over. Danny? Sweet, innocent Danny that was too scared to stand up to his bullies and was the first to run from a fight? He was  _ Phantom _ ? The ghost that ruined her life and haunted her nightmares? And there were more like him?

She had dedicated her life to hunting Phantom, and by doing that, thought she was protecting the people she cared about… including  _ Danny _ . Danny, who was apparently dead.

If she wasn’t already sitting down, she knew her legs would have given out from under her. Her entire life has been  _ worthless _ . From the start, when she was self-absorbed and focused on her image and reputation, to now. Phantom had… Danny had somehow made her dad lose his job, and her so-called ‘friends’ had dropped her by the end of the day. Without money, she lost her friends, reputation, and basically her entire  _ life _ . 

But Danny and his friends had  _ immediately _ tried to reach out to her, and she turned them away and treated them horribly. Hell, she had used Tucker just to try and figure out how best to destroy Phantom. To destroy  _ Danny. _

She thought that by becoming the Red Huntress and hunting down ghosts, she was getting a clean slate and doing something important with her life, but no, she was instead hurting the very person she cared about and allowed herself to get consumed with rage and revenge. 

She felt sick. Worse than that, though, was the thought that Danny had been taken, she had  _ let _ him get taken, and the last thing he had heard from her was her laughing and saying that he  _ deserved it.  _

Oh no.  _ Oh no… _

Valerie felt tears form on the edge of her eyes, and she didn’t even try to fight them away. What the hell had she done?

“Valerie? Valerie?”

Jazz was shaking her and saying her name, trying to get her attention.

“Valerie? It’s alright; you can help us, right? We’re going to get Danny back. He’s strong,” Jazz said, but her voice was full of emotion and relayed all of the fear and pain that she felt. She had lost her brother. Valerie had made her lose her brother.

He’s strong… Valerie knew that although that might be true, it wouldn’t help him. She was the one that got the closest view of him. He was seriously wounded. Even though he was… half-dead or whatever, she wasn’t sure that he would be able to survive the injuries the GIW (and her) had inflicted on him. What if the part of him that was Danny Fenton was already dead?

_ What if she helped kill him _ ?

“I-I want to help,” Valerie finally stuttered out. She knew she could help. All she needed was to focus and think of a plan. 

She needed to clear her head. She had to be objective and strong; her emotions could wait. They would wait until she had Danny back, safe and sound.

“We need a plan,” she said, using the strongest voice she could muster. It seemed to surprise those around her, and they all looked to her. 

Sam seemed to have been pulling herself together the last several minutes as well and had the same determined and pissed off look that Valerie had. 

“And I’ve got one,” she said, full of the spite and fire that Valerie was used to seeing in the girl. 

  
  


Danny was utterly exhausted. The GIW had been poking and prodding him for the past  _ two days  _ with breaks where Dr. West would speak to him about his obsessions and how dangerous he could be. He was angry and frustrated that all he could really do is struggle to try and make their job harder, which did nothing but make them inject him with something that made him calm and sluggish. It wore off every couple of hours, but they kept reinjecting him whenever he inevitably struggled against being stuck with needles and having things shoved down his ears and throat. 

Although he’s basically clueless as to what they were doing to him most of the time, he did know that so far they’ve done the regular doctor check-up, checked for reflexes, and poked him with needles all along his back and writing with a marker on his back to see how allergic he was to certain stuff. He doesn’t really know what they tested him for, but he  _ did _ know that one of them had been blood blossoms, and he freaked so badly they sedated him again. 

It sucked even more then because although he could still  _ feel _ all of the pain and irritation from the poisonous flowers, he could barely focus long enough to try and soothe the bubbling flesh. He knows Tucker would have flipped if their situations were reversed. 

His friend hates needles and hospitals. Danny frowned at the thought of his friend, hoping that he’d be able to see him again soon. Tucker always helped make light of bad situations. Usually with crummy jokes.

Danny would give his afterlife just to hear one of those jokes. He’s so tired and feels so powerless here.

He’s not even sure how long he’s been here. It feels like weeks, but he knows that can’t be true. It’d be easier to keep track of the days if they  _ fed _ him. At least then, he could count his meals. 

However long it’s been, he’s really starting to miss his family. His friends were always there for him both as friends and as allies. Even Jazz could usually always make him feel better, even if she usually ended their conversations with psychology stuff. Hell, he’d be willing to open up to his  _ parents _ right about now. 

He feels like he’s about to come apart at the seams. It still doesn’t even feel  _ real _ . How is he ever supposed to come to terms with being held prisoner and experimented on? Being studied like he’s some  _ freak?  _ Being separated from his family and friends?

Danny feels the stress build with every passing minute he’s forced to stay in his mockery of some creepy jungle that was supposed to pass for his lair. He really just wants to see a friendly face… and he’s sick of being Phantom. He just wants to act normal for a few days, even if it is just pretending not to be half-dead.

Seeing as there’s not really much else to do except wait for his tormentors to come back, Danny pulls himself over to the entrance of the cave in his cage. He pushes himself further in until he’s tucked away in the far corner of the dark cave, where hopefully no one could see him. Although he wouldn’t put it over the GIW to have installed cameras in here. Either way, he feels admittedly better when he’s not in front of the one-way mirror. At least now he can pretend to be something other than a freak being kept under observation. 

He curls up in his little corner, hoping to at least get some rest before the next little interrogation. He was so strung out last time that he almost just yelled that he was different because he was half-alive. It was almost a good thing that their ‘interrogations’ are done while he’s muzzled. Instead of asking him questions, they have started to just speak to him and try to confuse him and make him feel like shit. 

Dr. West has, at this point, probably told him at least three dozen times that he’s a ghost that’s dangerously obsessed with humanity. She thinks he should protect humanity from inside the ghost zone. Which, admittedly, would be easier than tracking each and every one of them down  _ after _ they’ve already caused some damage.

He’s had the muzzle on for at least a full day, and Dr. West never passes up the chance to remind him that any human would be long dead and that he needs to accept that he’s not human. Again, this leaves Danny filled with questions such as how alive can he truly be if he can survive just like the dead? 

He’s gone an absurd time without oxygen or food, and he’s actually worried that they’re going to kill his human half.

All that he knows is that she’ll be back with more difficult questions that make him wonder whether she’s right, and he needs to get some sleep before then. He can’t breathe, can’t eat, and can’t defend himself effectively, but he’s at least going to get some shut-eye before the next day of tests and needles. 

Just as he feels his eyes drooping and his exhausted body getting some reprieve, a shock courses through his body. He yelps and jerks up, reaching for the silver disc on his neck that shocked him. He tugs on it, wondering whether it was just a random occurrence. After pulling on the damned thing long enough for it to once again bleed, he gives up, deciding to figure it out in the morning. He could barely keep his eyes open.

He was once again about to fall asleep when the thing shocked him again. He yelped in pain behind his muzzle, realizing what that meant. He couldn’t even sleep! He wanted to pull his hair out and scream. 

Now he couldn’t eat, breathe, or  _ sleep _ ? How the hell was he supposed to stay sane?!

He lays back down, staring up at the ceiling. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could last in here. It was incredibly frustrating to be this exhausted, hungry, and humiliated. Just as he felt his eyes water at the injustice of it all, he heard the door hiss open. For once, he doesn’t go investigate who entered his room. They’ll just have to drag him out if they want to inject him with more strange substances. 

He hears a chair scrape across the ground and rolls over, facing away from the entrance of his cave. He knows  _ exactly _ who that is and wants nothing to do with her. He pulls absentmindedly at the muzzle attached to his face, wishing he could just feel human for a few short seconds. At least then he wouldn’t feel like everything the woman said was  _ true. _

The sound of the chair scraping loudly across the floor stopped, and instead, he heard the click of heels walk towards the entrance to his cave. The soft clicks echoed down the tunnel of rock, and Danny curled tighter, desperately wishing he could turn invisible. It’s not that he’s scared of her, per se, but he really doesn’t think he can listen to one more speech about how he’s endangering everyone he cares about. 

“Phantom?” Dr. West calls down the tunnel, but when he doesn’t answer, the woman enters the dark tunnel, being obviously unafraid of him. He knows she can see him even in the darkness because of his aura, but he ignores her as she approaches and sits next to him. 

She begins to speak about how well he did today and about how much they’re learning from him. She swears that it’ll be worth it and that he’s helping the citizens of Amity simply by being here. He  _ knows _ that this is probably not true, but he desperately wants to believe it. At least then, there’s a reason for all of this pain and humiliation. Besides, he feels useless since he’s been here. His obsession has been left unfulfilled because he’s left Amity completely vulnerable! Well, of course, Valerie is there… Valerie, who hated him a lot more than he thought.

Danny shifts awkwardly as she continues, but he tries to ignore her words. He really wants to believe that he’s somehow helping Amity by being here; it would placate his obsession to know that he is still protecting Amity. Besides, Dr. West is right about one thing: he attracts a lot of ghosts to his town, to his  _ family _ .

He hates himself just a little more at the notion that he’s actually starting to agree with the woman, but it’s true. He’s one of the reasons Skulker and Vlad and all the other ghosts keep going back. They like to fight with him. 

And during those fights, people get scared, and their property gets damaged.

He tunes back into her, just to try and distract himself from all of the times the school has had to rebuild and sacrifice teacher’s pay and the money for supplies to fix and replace what was broken from his fights. 

“-quiet fascinating how, although you can breathe and ingest food, you do not require it to survive. Don’t you think so, Phantom? Perhaps in your life, you were knowledgeable about anatomy and formed your ghost half so intricately as to allow it to function similar to that of a human’s,” Dr. West said, before patting him on the head. He flinched away at the touch, pulling himself further away from her. “Or maybe you weren’t quite convinced that you were dead and formed a body disturbingly similar to that of a human,” she said before seeming to pause in thought. 

He shuddered at the thought of him staying similar to a human because he didn’t think he was dead. That surely couldn’t be true, right? He wasn’t dead, just like Vlad wasn’t dead.

“Alright, well, although our talk has been short, I do think you deserve some alone time. You have another big day tomorrow,” Dr. West says, patting him again on the head before standing and making her exit. 

_ Oh, great. Another ‘big day’. _ Danny thinks before running his hand through his hair to rid the feel of Dr. West petting his head like he was some dog.

  
  


The next day, or at least what Danny assumes is the next day, he is, unsurprisingly, even more exhausted. His neck is ridiculously sore from the numerous times the silver disc would electrocute him for accidentally falling asleep. He finally had to force himself to get up and walk around every so often to prevent falling back asleep despite how much it hurt to simply stand up. His body is sore despite him not really exerting himself much the past several days. He assumes it’s similar to how he gets sore after getting the flu shot each year except this time he’s had numerous injections all across his back and has had blood, or ectoplasm, drawn from both arms several times.

Most worrisome, however, is that, despite him being in ghost form, his stomach is growling, and he is more exhausted than ever. Phantom rarely got tired; it was usually once he turned back to human form did the full effects of his fights hit him. But now, his human weaknesses such as needing air and food are starting to affect Phantom even with his core being stronger and more stable.

He distantly wonders just how weak his human form is for the effects to bleed over to his ghost form. His lungs are actually  _ burning _ from lack of air, but his core still seems stable enough to where he’s not dizzy or passing out from not being able to breathe. Although, he’s not sure how much longer his ghost half can maintain his human form without giving it food, water, or air. 

If he’s not able to eat or breathe for much longer, will he actually fully die? He’s not sure, but the thought is disturbing, so he pushes it away, deciding it wouldn’t do him much good to think about that right now. Just like it doesn’t really do him good to sit and think about his family. No, he needs to figure out his way out of here before things get worse.

He hears the door to his cell open, and he turns to face the entrance of the cave. His eyes are burning from lack of sleep, and he tries to blink to make his vision a tad clearer, but still can’t quite make out who it is standing at the entrance of his cave. 

He assumes they’re here to do some more poking and prodding, and although he decidedly does not want that to happen, he doesn’t know how much energy he has to fight them off. 

The person approaches him and kneels in front of him, and Danny can make out that this guy is an agent, not a doctor. For some reason, that actually makes him feel a tad safer. The agent grabs his arm and starts dragging him out of the cave, so Danny gets to his feet and fumbles along after the guy.

He’s tugged out of the cave and into the brightness of the lair. He’s pulled to the center of the lair and chained back to the ground, despite his struggles. Two doctors are there waiting for him, and he doesn’t really do much other than glare at them as they move beside him and lift his shirt. Another incision is made, and Danny tries to steel himself for what comes next. The instrument that measures his core’s energy is inserted, and he again groans in pain behind the muzzle as it works its way around inside of him before pressing against his core. 

He can feel his core throbbing, and tries to ignore the overwhelming discomfort and instead glares at the fake tree a few feet from where he’s restrained. He hears the click of heels but doesn’t look up to see whether it’s Dr. West or not. He’s pretty sure it is her because she never leaves him alone with anyone else. 

“His core seems relatively healed, but still somewhat weak, although this is probably due to his inability to fulfill his obsession rather than physical injury,” one of the doctors states, and he hears Dr. West reply in a happy tone.

“Excellent! Let’s proceed with phase two of observation, and afterward, finish with the current objective. Alright?” She says, rocking back and forth on her feet like an excited child. “Go inform the team and prep them,” Dr. West says to the scientists, and they quickly pack up and leave, supposedly to go follow her orders. The agent leaves as well, once again handing the key to his chains to Dr. West on his way out. 

Dr. West stays, but Danny still doesn’t look at her. 

“You’re doing much better, Phantom. You don’t have very long before we can release you back into the ghost zone for you to defend the entrance to the human world, yeah?” She says, and Danny ignores her, preferring to stare at the ground in front of him. 

Dr. West approaches him, and Danny doesn’t move as she pets him on the head. He hates her. He can feel his rage rise through him, and for once in his life, he wishes he had his powers, not to defend himself or protect someone, but to hurt someone. He wants to hurt her how she’s hurt him. He wants to release all of his pain and frustration on her. 

Still, he’s exhausted and knows he won’t be able to do anything other than amuse her if he tries to speak or struggle against his restraints. Besides, the way she’s still standing in front of him seems as if she’s actually waiting for him to do something. When he doesn’t, she unlocks his restraints and walks to the door and opens it before turning back to look at him. She seems to be taunting him, standing in front of the open door with him unchained.

He pulls himself to his feet, wondering whether the ghost shield to keep him in the room is still active. 

Even if it wasn’t, though, he would have to get the remote from her, fight his way out of the building, and pray there wasn’t a second remote or another ghost shield around the facility. The simple task of just walking over to the door seems daunting.

In the end, he doesn’t really do anything, and she seems satisfied with his lack of action. 

“I will be back later, Phantom,” she says with a smile. “And until then, you should try and rest,” she says as she pulls out the remote and retracts his muzzle. 

He reaches up and touches his face, glad to feel skin instead of the rough surface of the muzzle. He doesn’t breathe until she leaves the room, afraid she’d reactivate the muzzle. 

Once she  _ is _ gone, he goes back to the entrance of the cave and enters, safely tucking himself back into his little corner before letting himself take a quiet but deep breath. 

He instantly feels much better, and his head clears somewhat, ridding him of the small headache he wasn’t aware that he had. He stays there, tucked safely away in his corner for hours until the people enter his cell again. He fights this time, feeling somewhat stronger with his new ability to breathe. He desperately hopes Dr. West doesn’t muzzle him again.

They drag him back out to the lair, but this time, don’t chain him to the ground. Instead, they shove him down and pin him to the floor. He curses and yells at them, happy to finally be able to use his voice. 

A doctor walks over, and Danny shouts obscenities at her as she kneels beside him and uncaps a syringe. The agents above him pin his shoulders and head to the floor, and Danny fights as hard as he can as the syringe steadily comes closer. 

He feels the prick in his neck as the needle penetrates his skin, and then feels the burn of something being pushed through the needle and into his blood. His struggles become considerably weaker, and his exhausted body all but collapses at the opportunity for sleep. 

His eyes shut, and his body stills. The last thing he hears before he’s taken by sleep is the sound of Dr. West’s heels entering the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! I'm so excited to finally be getting to the climax of the story! The climax will be the next two chapters and I'll finally be able to get this story fully down on paper instead of having it dancing around my head!
> 
> Let me know whether you think the art should be added at the end of existing chapters or as a separate chapter at the end of the story!
> 
> Also, any ideas of scenes or moments in the story that you'd like to see as art would be great! I'm trying to decide which moment of the story I'd like to capture.
> 
> Thanks for reading!!


	5. The Last Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took almost a MONTH to update. Just started nursing school and it was hard to find the time. Also, it's kind of hard to write a vivisection scene. 
> 
> Which reminds me, WARNING! This is the chapter that has the vivisection scene! 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Danny blinks his eyes open, head feeling heavy, and vision blurry. There was a bright white light blinding him, so he allowed his eyes to slide back shut. He could hear a familiar voice shushing him and then felt a hand card through his hair. For some reason, the comforting gesture brought fear creeping to the forefront of his brain. 

Confused by the fear, he opened his eyes again, trying to get them to focus on the blurry person standing on his right and touching his hair. His eyes focused slightly, and he could make out red curls and a smiling face. It was Dr. West, staring down at him, an eager smile plastered on her face. 

Her excitement was unnerving and Danny tried to sit up, needing to get away from the woman’s touch and her calculating eyes. A flash of fear shot through him as he felt the metal restraints digging into his wrists and ankles, pinning him to the hard surface he was on. He lifted his head, trying to push back the nausea and dizziness that swam through him at the small action, and instead surveyed his surroundings. 

He was restrained to a metal slab and he was…  _ naked? _ Danny instinctively tried to close his legs, but was stopped, once again, by icy cold metal. Humiliation flooded through him at being so exposed and unable to cover himself or defend himself from whatever this maniac of a woman had planned. 

His situation was made even worse once he noticed the multitude of people in lab coats buzzing around him. They were shuffling around excitedly, running from one computer or table to the next and discussing things amongst one another in excited voices. Sure, they were ignoring him right  _ now _ , but Danny wasn’t stupid. He knew that they could only be here for one reason.  _ He was about to be experimented on. _

He tried to quell his inner panic, but the task was made more difficult at the feel of Dr. West’s eyes burning into the side of his face as her hand continuously combed through his hair. The woman was humming softly to herself, seemingly content about whatever was about to occur as she petted him like he was her prized pet. And maybe that  _ is _ how she saw him. Something to be studied, trained, and then released. Or perhaps put down if he didn’t cooperate. 

“Good morning, Phantom. I’m glad you're awake.” Danny flinched at the words, despite Dr. West’s soft, almost motherly voice. His eyes watered despite his frustration, and he clenched his teeth, glaring at her with as much hate as he could. In a way, she sounded just like his mom, and he hated her for it. Her voice was bright and cheery and, if he was being honest, it  _ was _ always his mom he feared would be standing over him while he was strapped to a dissection table. 

The sound of steady electronic beeps, hushed voices, and clinking metal as tools were lined on a tray filtered through his panicked mind, and he tried to block out the sounds and concentrate. He needed to see his surroundings and find a way to escape.

He could  _ not _ let this happen. He was going to figure out a way to fight and get the  _ hell _ out of here. He jerked his head away from Dr. West, cursing at her under his breath, and saw that he was in the center of what appeared to be an operating theater.

An  _ operating theater?! _

Danny gritted his teeth and tried to shove the overwhelming horror down. His body flooded with adrenaline and his heart began to beat rapidly against his ribcage as if it too wanted to escape this situation. 

_ An operating theater meant only one thing…  _ Danny thought bitterly, feeling bile inch its way up his throat. His worst fear, the  _ one  _ thing he’s had nightmares about since he first got his ghost powers, was about to become a reality. He whined low in his throat, pulling against his restraints in a last-ditch effort to avoid what these monsters had planned for him. 

At the whine, Dr. West shushed him gently and grabbed his chin to turn him to face her once more. “We are about to learn  _ so much _ about you and your kind, Phantom! Don’t be frightened; you’re  _ helping _ people,” she assured in a voice far too happy in such a dark and morbid setting. 

Danny couldn’t stop the first tear that fell as he looked at her indifferent green eyes. He had always imagined it would be his mother or father who would finally trap him on an examination table. He figured he would just have to tell them the truth, that he was their  _ son _ and not just some putrid ghost. He had always hoped that they would let him go once they learned, but now? Dr. West probably wouldn’t care if he was half-human. Hell, it would probably give her the idea for even  _ more _ examinations. 

He desperately tried to calm his racing thoughts, and finally turned away from the woman, instead scanning the room, frantically searching for a potential exit. 

He noted the computers and odd machines lining the walls and the scientists or doctors that commanded them. Above the short walls were rows and rows of seats behind a plane of glass. There were several agents and official-looking people talking amongst themselves behind the glass and some were gesturing to Danny, which sent a shiver down his spine. 

They were here to watch something, something he wasn’t going to like. 

Dr. West continued stroking his hair, a gesture that, from his mom, was always comforting, but now, it just seemed to be mocking him. She wasn’t trying to comfort him, no, she was  _ petting _ him. This was her  _ gloating _ .

He kept his head turned away from Dr. West, refusing to speak for fear of what his voice would betray. He wanted to scream and plead for them to stop, but he knew it would be pointless. She’d probably just muzzle him and then he’d have to endure whatever they had planned  _ while _ not being able to breathe. 

His eyes were caught by a nurse rolling a tray of tools over to the table and Danny felt another tear fall. He couldn’t think of a way out of this one. He prayed that his friends would come for him. Surely Jazz, Sam, and Tucker were out looking for him right this moment. They would burst through here any minute on the specter speeder and everything would be fine. This would just be another close call, right? A-and he’s had plenty of those...

He flinched as Dr. West’s voice penetrated the quiet of the room. She looked away from him, addressing a small team of surgeons. “Alright, the subject is conscious. His ectoplasmic form should now reflect his subconscious and is ready for inspection. Inject the paralytic and begin the procedure; I will observe from behind the glass,” Dr. West said quickly, patting his hair one last time before stepping away and leaving him. He tilted his head upwards, trying to see where she was going, but he couldn’t see. He  _ could _ , however, hear a door opening and then closing. The exit was directly behind him and just out of his line of sight.

He wasn’t sure how useful that information was with him still being restrained to a dissection table, but he did find some comfort in it. It  _ was _ progress, even if minimal. 

A nurse stepped into his view and grabbed his hand, twisting it so it was palm up, and then somehow making the restraint even  _ tighter _ so he couldn’t turn his wrist back over. He leaned his head forward, watching as she pricked his arm, inserting an IV before he could even react. 

“Wait!” He pulled against the restraint, trying to dislodge the IV, but it didn’t budge, and his arm barely even moved. He looked up at the nurse, panicked. 

“Alright, dear,” the nurse said in a kind voice that seemed utterly out of place. How could someone pretend to be nice while about to paralyze him and _dissect_ him? These people truly didn’t see him as anything more than a pile of ectoplasm attached to a post consciousness if they had _not_ _a single fucking bit_ of remorse while looking down at him crying on a _fucking_ table. 

“This is gonna ensure you keep still and don’t hurt yourself,” she said cheerfully while injecting something into his IV tube before patting his arm consolingly. 

He desperately tried to pull against his restraints and get the IV out of him before whatever she had injected him with could enter his bloodstream, but he could barely move with the restraints. After several long seconds of struggle, he could tell that the drug was slowly sapping his strength and making it harder to fight. His body seemed to be slowing down without his consent. 

Despite his frantic and panicking mind, his body calmed and settled into an unnatural stillness. His heart stopped pounding and his breath evened out as if he were asleep. He couldn’t move anything, not even his head to see who was moving around him. 

“Alright, begin the procedure,” Dr. West said over a speaker into the room, voice sounding more prideful than ever. 

Danny felt tears prick his eyes as several people hidden behind surgical masks stepped forward, towering over him as he laid bare on the table. The faceless people blocked out the blinding lights shining down on him as they crowded around him. He could hear the soft clinking of metal as they picked up different tools, but he frustratingly couldn’t see what they were getting. 

Despite the rising panic, his body remained unresponsive and he laid, utterly useless, and strapped to a table. He was paralyzed and nude in front of God only knew how many people. 

A scalpel briefly entered his field of vision before dipping lower and pressing into his chest. He could feel the fire on his chest as his skin parted, allowing the knife to dig into his flesh. He wanted to scream, wanted to feel his lungs constrict and his body thrash against the pain as he tried to fight and escape, but he could only sit passively as the blade dug deeper into his skin... 

He felt sick over the loss of control of his own body. He couldn’t tense his muscles or take a deep breath to calm himself as the blade made its deadly descent down the center of his chest. 

Once that cut was made, the blade landed higher on his chest, between his neck and shoulder, before once again slicing through his unprotected skin. The same mark was made on the other side of his chest, forming what Danny felt was ‘Y’. It was, however, difficult to tell due to the entirety of his chest burning with the pain the scalpel left in its wake. 

He prayed for unconsciousness as he felt metal instruments digging into the long incision before pulling the skin in opposite directions. 

If he was able to, he knew he’d be screaming. He could feel his skin being laboriously separated from each muscle and tendon laying underneath and his entire body seemed to be in agony at the intrusion. As it was, instead of screaming and crying, he was only able to stare blankly at the ceiling with tears streaming down the sides of his face. Their slow trail down the side of his face almost seemed peaceful, especially in the quiet of the lab. The tears were, however, the only sign of him even being able to feel what was happening. 

There were soft  _ awes _ and other sounds of surprise as the people over him looked at his exposed chest. They didn’t stay frozen in awe for long, however, and there was soon another scalpel pressing down unto the muscle hiding and protecting his inner organs. 

Danny likes to think of himself as a strong-ish person. He’s usually pretty resilient and although he gets angry easily, he’s never been a crier. He recognizes, however, that if he could, he’d be sobbing. A minuscule part of him that is still fighting to remind himself that he  _ is _ human despite how they’re treating him, is somewhat glad that he can’t react how he wants to. It would only make him feel shame and more like the creature they saw his as than anything else. 

Soon, the muscle was pulled apart and there were hands reaching  _ into _ his body, invading every aspect of his person. His eyes were burning as the lights shone down mercilessly and he wished again that he could close them to at least  _ attempt _ to block out the horror surrounding him. 

The scientists were speaking to one another in hushed voices, and he could hear the clicks of a keyboard as someone recorded what was happening. 

“Look at just how accurate his anatomy is,” a young female scientist said before several others chimed in in agreement.

The hands in his chest caused an immense pressure that blocked out all other sensation and he felt hot tears spill and burn their way down his face to join the rest of his tears pooling on the table below. 

He desperately wished he could emote his expressions beyond these pathetic tears, and he admits to himself in shame that the GIW was winning. He was strapped naked and drugged on a table, being dissected in an operating theater as people watched from above through the thick panel of glass. There were hands  _ inside  _ of him and all he could do was continue to humiliate himself by  _ crying _ . 

If he’s honest with himself, he doesn’t exactly feel human right now. 

* * *

  
  


Valerie tried not to fidget from where she sat on the back of the bus. Today was the big day and there was no room for error. She’d already messed up enough. 

She’d run the mission parameters through her head a thousand times. To infiltrate the GIW, she just had to pretend that she didn’t know that Phantom was actually  _ Fenton _ . She’d have to act apathetic towards whatever condition she found him in as if he were still her enemy. She could do that right? 

She’d been training herself for months, building her rage and her hatred towards Phantom. She’d been ready to take him down. No, she’d been foaming at the  _ bit _ , waiting for her chance to finally end him. She’s had plenty of practice and should be able to play her part just fine. 

She just had to stay calm and pretend not to care when she saw Danny. 

‘No,  _ Phantom _ . You have to think of him as Phantom or you might slip,’ Valerie thought, cursing at herself under her breath.

Sam and Tucker had both warned her of all she might see and how bad off Danny, no,  _ Phantom,  _ could potentially be. When she saw him, she couldn’t react no matter how horrible he looked. She couldn’t think of him as a friend or as someone she had at once thought she loved. No, she needed to think of him as she once had… an enemy that deserved whatever happened to him. 

She felt a shiver run up her spine at the notion. She  _ had _ truly hated him at one point. She was disgusted with herself for it, but she had to play the part no matter how much it made her hate herself. 

They couldn’t afford for the GIW to suspect her because she  _ had  _ to gain their trust just enough to abuse it and get her friend out of there. She owed at least that much to Danny after all she’s put him through.

That was, if he was even there. That was always a possibility, but seeing as she contacted them about seeing  _ Phantom _ , she’s praying that he’s actually there. 

The bus begins to slow and Valerie jerks her head toward the window, panic rising in her as she realizes this is it. This is her stop. 

She takes a moment to collect herself before leaving the bus, saying a small thank you to the bus driver. Once at the stop, she waited for the bus to leave before changing into her Huntress gear. She, admittedly, felt much better now that her face was hidden. It felt like she had an extra layer that the GIW would have to see through to figure out that she had changed alliances. 

She presses a button on the side of her watch, silently alerting Sam, Tucker and Jazz that she was about to head towards the base.

So far, so good. 

One tap on the watch meant it was going according to plan and two meant something was wrong. 

She was to alert them once she made it off the bus and into her Huntress gear, then again once she reached the GIW headquarters. 

The third alert would be given once she found Danny. 

The fourth? This would signal Tucker that she had managed to get the device he gave her plugged into their system. This was the most important part. Once Tucker gained access to their system, he would be able to determine whether they could spring Danny today, or whether they would have to wait and regroup. 

Valerie was honestly just glad they weren’t in this alone. Sure, the Fentons weren’t helping, but they weren’t  _ hurting _ the mission. They were far too busy searching for their son and contacting every news station in the state to stay at home and monitor what they were up to. 

Sam had managed to rally a small group of kids ready and willing to storm the GIW base to free Phantom. Well, more like she managed to convince  _ Paulina _ to convince most of the football and basketball team to help free Phantom. According to Sam, she had a weirdly obsessive crush on the ghost half of Fenton and was more than eager to help free him. Without prompting, she had also pursued most of the school’s band and average geeks. Once word got out about their attempt, even more kids got involved, passing coded notes in the hallways filled with all of the information along with suggestions about armor and medical supplies to bring. It was impressive, to say the least, and Valerie had no clue just how many of their classmates would show up in support of their town hero. 

Sam was with all of them now; her team was stationed a little over a mile off, armed with ecto-weapons and all-terrain vehicles. Valerie hoped enough people showed up and on the flip side that they had prepared enough weapons and armor for them if more showed than expected. 

Tucker was back at FentonWorks with her dad and several other computer people from school all ready to tackle whatever info the device Tucker gave her would provide. 

If she managed to do her part, Danny would be free today. Tucker and her dad would take control of their defense system and Sam and her team would provide the distraction as she got to Danny and got him out. Paulina and Star would be waiting at the rendezvous site with medical supplies and a van courtesy of Paulina’s ex that would transport them undetected back to FentonWorks. 

This entire plan was banking on one thing: her. 

She had to gain access to the building and locate Phantom. After that, she was supposed to somehow gain access to a room that she had no idea how to find and would probably be heavily guarded. Once she does this, somehow plug the device into… something. After that she would have to move through the base undetected while Sam was causing the invasion and somehow track down Danny and pray that they didn’t think to move him. 

_ Then _ , she would have to somehow break him out and get him out of the GIW facility all without being seen or shot down. 

To say she was a nervous wreck was an understatement. She knew, however, that there was no way she would let Danny down again. 

She had spent the last several months making his life hell and trying to  _ kill _ him. She owed this to him and nothing was going to stop her. She needed to redeem herself both in his eyes and in her own. For as much as she had liked to think of herself as a hero, this mission was the first time she  _ knew _ she was doing the right thing. 

And did she feel heroic? Not at  _ all _ ; she was so terrified she was shaking. She wasn’t sure what she would do with herself if they couldn’t save him. 

Her eyes watered underneath her mask as she remembered the broken look on Danny’s face as he was being taken away. The last thing he had heard from her was a hateful remark and her  _ laughing _ at his pain. 

She slowed her hoverboard down as she broke through the treeline. The GIW facility was just ahead, the sun setting behind it and casting a shadow over the length of the field she would have to cross to get to her destination. 

She took a deep breath before urging her hoverboard forward. She was supposed to meet an agent at the front door that would lead her to the person at the head of Phantom’s research team. Then, she was supposed to see Danny. They wanted to talk to her more about what she knew about Phantom. She prayed they did this  _ after _ showing her where Danny was. 

She wasn’t sure she could keep up the act for long while talking to the people who were doing god knows what to her friend. 

She had already flown over the clear electric fence lining the property and was surely being watched by their surveillance, but she wasn’t too worried. They had already told her she could check in at the front door security rather than at the gate, so they most likely wouldn’t shoot her down or anything. 

And so what if they did? As long as she was able to finish this mission, she didn’t care about anything else. She would make it up to Danny, no matter what she had to do or sacrifice to get him his freedom.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Danny had lost consciousness sometime into his… procedure. 

His body or mind might have finally succumbed to the pain or exhaustion or something else, but he doesn’t question it. It’s a small mercy that his mind can shut off and block out some of his time stuck on that table. He remembers waking up a few times, flashes of light, and distorted voices filtering through his groggy consciousness. 

The first sensation that always came first was sound. He heard the doctor's voices and once, Dr. West’s voice over the staticky sound of the loudspeaker. The sounds are what tempt him back to consciousness. He has a few moments of peace, where all he can remember are the soft beeps of machines and the sound of strangers' voices before his senses are overwhelmed as he is overtaken by pain and the disturbing realization of his situation. 

This time, however, was different. He didn’t hear anything. There was a stillness surrounding him, housing a suffocating and ominous feeling. Sound wasn’t what lured him into consciousness, nor was it pain, but instead the feeling that something was very,  _ very  _ wrong. 

He blinked his eyes open and was met with the sight of the damp moss covering the ground of his enclosure. He could feel a crustiness around his eyes from where his tears had long since dried. He hesitantly tried to move his arm, thankful to feel his limbs once again obeying him. 

He slowly dragged his hand through the moss, trying to find comfort in the smooth, coolness of the plant. For all he knew, it was fake moss, but he’d like to think that he wasn’t the only thing alive in this cage. Surely at least  _ some _ of the odd, glowy plants in here were real. Even if he wasn’t  _ fully  _ alive and wasn’t quite sure whether his human half was still alive after all of this, he’d like to think that he and the moss had at least that one thing in common.

A cold tremor overtook him, and all he could feel was a numb sensation spread through him. Strangely, he wasn’t in pain, although he knew he should be. His body was utterly exhausted, and it took all of his strength to simply push himself into a sitting position. 

There was a feeling of something pulling against his chest as he moved and he glanced down at himself, noting that he was once again dressed in a white hospital gown thing. He slowly reached up to the collar of the gown, heart beating harder at the fear of what he  _ knew _ he was going to see. 

He hesitated before pulling the clothing away and revealing the horrors hidden below. 

There, on his chest, were dozens of stitches all placed to keep his chest closed. They formed a gruesome ‘Y’ and Danny had to look away, trying to keep the bile from climbing its way up his throat. Even once his eyes were squeezed shut, he could see nothing other than the abomination on his chest. His skin was pale and bruised dark browns and greens and purples. 

He felt sick, but there was nothing in his stomach for him to throw up. Still, he recovered his chest and looked away, trying to get the horrid image out of his mind. 

He stared at the pool of ectoplasm, wondering whether it would actually heal him as it would other ghosts. He didn’t, however, decide to test it. It’d be too humiliating; it’d be admitting what he really was. 

Instead, he pulled himself back towards the small little cave, planning to hide himself from the cameras in his ‘enclosure’. Before he could even get halfway there, he had broken out in a cold sweat and was forced to take a break, collapsing against a downed log. 

After several moments of taking deep breaths and trying to stop the room from spinning, he began to move again but was stopped when he heard the tell-tale hiss of the door opening. 

He looked up, sneer on his face, ready to fend off whatever Dr. West threw at him next. 

His face dropped in shock when he saw the familiar red suit enter the door, Dr. West a moment behind. Danny stared, mind racing and trying to figure out what this meant. 

Did Valerie come to taunt him? She  _ had _ agreed to meet with the GIW afterward… he hadn’t thought about it since his capture. Still, maybe he could trick her into delivering a message to Sam and Tucker.

He tried to force himself to his feet, but nausea and dizziness overtook him, his vision darkening momentarily. He angrily sat back down, pissed that Valerie would see him so  _ pathetic _ . 

She had her mask down and there was a malicious grin on her face, although the dark look didn’t quite meet her eyes. He stared at her, trying to figure out just what was different about her when Dr. West spoke. 

“Well, Miss Huntress, here he is, your greatest adversary,” Dr. West gestured to him with a proud smile on her face. “He’s been  _ very _ helpful to us in our studies.”

The door behind them hissed shut, sealing him in with two people that didn’t view him as a person. 

* * *

Valerie was desperately trying to keep the tears out of her eyes as she saw the stitches poking out from the white gown Danny was wearing. While she had been walking with Dr. West, a no-nonsense woman that was more ambitious than she was human, she had to endure listening to the details of how Danny was  _ dissected _ . The woman had bragged about having Danny strapped down to a table, fully conscious, but paralyzed throughout the procedure. 

Valerie had smiled and nodded and commented when appropriate, all while fighting to keep her lunch down. She had thought the most difficult part of her mission would be to trick the GIW and sneak away from them long enough to give Tucker access to their security, but no. The most difficult part was looking down at Danny while he stared back at her with a mixture of fear and sadness trapped in his gaze. 

She didn’t realize how sick she would feel once she saw him. Her knees were shaking and the guilt at what she had allowed to happen to him was all consuming. 

She forced a smile on her face, hoping it was as menacing as it usually was and quickly looked away. It was near impossible to look him in the eye after all that she had done. After all that he had  _ endured _ . 

He probably hated her, probably  _ should _ hate her, but she tried to ignore it and him all in the sake of keeping her cover up. She felt like simply looking into his haunted eyes would make her break down on the spot. She was barely keeping up the facade of being on Dr. West’s side as it was. 

She glanced at Danny again, wishing for her mask to hide her face as she tried to scan him over for injuries or anything pertinent to the mission. He was weak and aura was almost nonexistent. She would most likely have to carry him and couldn’t depend on him to fight or defend himself. He also had a small silver disc the size of a coin attached to the side of his neck. That could be a problem. 

“So, Dr. West. What is this thing on his neck?” Valerie asked, squatting down to get a closer look and giving Danny her attempt at a sincere ‘ _ I’m going to get you out of this face’.  _ He must not have understood, because all he did was bare his teeth at her and clench the fist of the arm not holding up his body weight. 

“Ah, that one is my personal invention,” Dr. West said before stepping off to examine the different plants in the small containment room. “The device contains his ecto-energy to his vessel. So, put simply, he can’t use his powers for anything other than simply maintaining his form.” Dr. West kneeled down before plucking a blue flower that was illuminating the small area around it from where it was growing. As soon as she picked it, the flower’s glow died and it instantly wilted, turning from a soft blue, to a dead brown, to a dark black, until finally, it was almost like oil dripping off of her fingers. 

“It not only contains his energy, but it also binds it. To me,” she said wiping the black oil onto the moss before standing. “He gains and loses the ability to control his so-called ‘powers’ at my will. His energy can either be contained or released from this facility at my whim,” Dr. West said while smiling down at Danny. 

Danny, always the good-natured one, flipped her off. Valerie had to hide her smile. It was really good to see that Danny was still… well,  _ Danny. _

She stiffened as his angry gaze turned to her. “And I’m not bound to her like some  _ pet _ . She’s giving herself  _ far _ too much credit. This,” he said gesturing to the silver thing on his neck, “is more of a glorified  _ shock collar _ .” He turned his cold glare to Dr. West, but didn’t speak.

“Ah, well just because I preferred to control your spirit through means of technology rather than dark magic doesn’t make it any less effective,  _ pet _ ,” Dr. West said, voice an unassuming calmness despite her words being a clear threat not to question her credibility again. 

Valerie, seeing her opportunity, jumped in. “W-what, um… How do you bind him through technology?” Valerie inquired. 

Dr. West gave her a skeptical look, pushing her glasses slightly higher to appraise her. “Hm, why don’t I just  _ show  _ you,” she said, pulling a little remote out of her lab coat. 

Valerie’s eyes widened and she glanced at Danny, seeing him watching Dr. West nervously while still hunching over to protect the stitches that no doubt traced down his entire chest. 

Dr. West brandished the remote, waving it around as if to mock Danny all while smiling cheerfully at him. “What should I do, pet? Allow you to use your powers for a moment so you can show the Huntress just how weak you’ve gotten?” 

Danny gritted his teeth and met the doctor's gaze. “Oh, you’ll see just how  _ weak _ I am,” he said while pulling his feet underneath him, but not quite standing. His face was turning slightly green as he tried to force himself to his feet, but Dr. West stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder, keeping him in place. 

“Don’t strain yourself, Phantom,” she said snidely before releasing him once it was obvious he wasn’t going to make it to his feet. 

Valerie felt guilty at just standing by and not helping her friend, but once again, she just had to clench her teeth and focus on the role she had to play. 

Her job was made a lot harder when Danny turned his hateful gaze unto her. He glared at her for several long moments, eyes green, but not burning an acidic, toxic green like they usually do. It was yet  _ another _ reminder of how much had happened to him and how weak he truly was. 

Here he was, most likely terrified, wounded, and too weak to stand, and yet he was angry and trying to fight all the same. And what was Valerie doing? Standing here and siding with his captor. Sure, it was part of the plan to rescue him, but Valerie felt immense guilt all the same. She wouldn’t blame Danny for hating her for the rest of his life even if she does manage to help him escape. 

“What the hell do you want,  _ Red,”  _ Danny said, spitting her name like a curse. She tried to meet his gaze, but couldn’t stand seeing the hatred festering there, mainly because she knew that she  _ deserved  _ it. Instead, she focused all of her attention on Dr. West, feeling even more guilt at not being able to even look Danny in the eye. 

She felt her throat tighten, but viciously shoved down the emotions, trying to numb herself to the situation. She owed it to Danny to finish this mission, no matter  _ how _ it made her feel. She couldn’t help the disgusted look that settled on her face at her own weakness, and Dr. West must have noticed her expression because she was soon being steered out of the forest-like cell. 

“Don’t worry, Huntress. Soon, this ghost will be serving our purpose and you won’t have to see  _ him _ or any other ghost ever again,” the woman said while turning to grin one last time at Danny. 

Valerie turned as well, trying to discreetly give Danny a softer smile. “I’ll see you again  _ Danny _ Phantom,” she said, hoping that calling him by his first name would somehow signal to him that she  _ knew _ . That she was here to help. 

As they left and the door hissed shut behind them, Valerie turned to Dr. West with a smile. 

“Thank you for inviting me; it’s good to know that he’s off the streets,” she said, trying to shoot a somewhat hateful look to Danny’s cell. “I, uh… what exactly did you mean when you said it’d be serving our purpose?” Valerie tried not to wince at calling Danny an ‘it’. 

Dr. West turned to her, eyes narrowed in thought before she finally spoke. “Sorry, dear. I’m afraid any specifics on the matter would be considered classified.” Valerie got the feeling that she hadn’t lived up to Dr. West’s expectations and wouldn’t be trusted for too much longer. 

She just nodded and looked away, as Dr. West began telling her different things about their facility. 

Valerie desperately tried to keep up with Dr. West’s conversation, but the woman seemed content for her to simply smile and nod and agree with what she was saying. Valerie even sprinkled in a few compliments despite it making her want to bite her own tongue off. 

She couldn’t, however, afford to let her own emotions get in the way, so she tried to separate the woman in front of her from the person that had done this to Danny. 

As they walked, Valerie mapped out their path in her head, meticulously noting each and every turn. She would need to know how to get back to Danny once she managed to get away from Dr. West. 

Just as they were rounding a corner, a young male scientist approached, eyes widening when he saw Valerie and giving her an adoring smile, as if he  _ idolized _ her and her work. She tried to keep a neutral face and not show her disgust as he turned his attention to Dr. West. 

“Um, Dr. West? We have a, um, problem on the north side of the facility,” he said, fidgeting nervously. 

Dr. West tensed beside Valerie before responding in a harsh voice. “What  _ kind _ of a problem, Farris?” 

The auburn haired man glanced up at her almost sheepishly before responding: “I’m not sure whether they’re protestors or what, but they are trying to invade our facility, ma’am.” Dr. West looked positively livid, and the boy quickly continued. “But, they have not breached the gate yet and are currently being handled by our agents! I was just told to come and get you, doctor.” He now dropped his gaze as Dr. West glared at him. 

She quickly composed herself, however, and looked to Valerie. “You’ll have to excuse me, Huntress. I’m assuming you can find your own way out?” Dr. West said before extending a hand to shake. 

_ This is it.  _ Valerie thought. She shook Dr. West’s hand before turning to the young scientist and taking a step forward, putting herself between Dr. West and him. “Please to meet you as well, doctor…?” She smiled at the blushing man, and she may have even batted her eyes as she shook his hand,  _ sue her _ . 

“Oh! Um, my name is Joshua! Joshua Farris!” He said, grinning widely at her. 

She nodded before turning around and bumping into Dr. West, causing the woman to lose her balance. 

“Oh! I’m  _ so _ sorry, doctor. Please,” Valerie helped righting her before taking a step back, hands clasped behind her back. “I’ll let myself out, Dr. West. Again, thank you for showing me your facility and your newest ‘project,’” Valerie said in a tight voice. 

Dr. West nodded stiffly before turning to follow the young man down the hallway. 

Valerie turned and began to retrace her steps, tightly clasping Dr. West’s remote in her hand. 

_ This was it.  _ She searched the facility for what felt like an eternity before finally coming across a guarded room filled with computers. She approached the guards with a confused face, calling to them for directions as to how to leave the building. They began to answer her as she continued to walk closer to them, but she had dispatched both of them before they ever got the chance to answer. 

She tried the door and, surprisingly, it opened, allowing her to enter into a room filled with startled technicians. All staring at her with wide, fearful eyes. 

She didn’t give them the chance to surrender, using the taser Tucker had provided her with to put each and every one of them down before they could flee or sound an alarm, if they hadn’t already. Once she had the room to herself, she pulled the small flash drive out of her pocket and plugged it into the nearest computer. She pressed the button on the side of her watch and waited, praying this mission wouldn’t fail. 

After several minutes, the computer screens started to go blank one by one and Valerie smiled before pulling her mask back on. 

She exited the room and clicked her heels together, activating her hoverboard before flying as fast as she dared to Danny’s containment room. 

_ This was all going to end today. _

_ _

* * *

This is my vision of Dr. West! 

This is the enclosure I imagined for Danny! It didn't quite turn out exactly as I planned... It ended up more flat and cartoonish than I intended, but still wanted to upload as an idea of how I view his cage! 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! Finally managed to post this chapter. Only two more chapters to go!


	6. Revolution

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter was super fun to write! Just a heads up, there's a ton of different POVs in this chapter and will be more in the upcoming chapter.
> 
> No real warnings for this chapter. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Sam’s voice was hoarse and cracked from the constant shouting, but she ignored how awful it sounded in favor of screaming for her troops to push forwards. The mass of people hidden behind masks, bandanas, and face paint complied, shouting the order further through the crowd before pushing against the GIW guards in one massive force. 

She grabbed the arm of the tall person beside her with a red bandana tied around his arm. They were gaining ground little by little, but once the line of guards gave, they would have to make a break for it. 

Dash was hidden underneath a black spray-painted football helmet and a bandana tucked underneath to hide his face. The only reason Sam even knew it was him was because of the red bandana tied around his upper arm. She bore the matching one, signifying that they were singled out for a separate mission. 

Other than the bandana, Sam had all of her hair pulled back and tucked underneath a black baseball hat with a neon green bandana over her nose. She had borrowed one of Danny’s old NASA hoodies and even bound her chest to conceal as much about her identity as possible. They _were_ about to storm a government facility after all. 

“Push up!” Dash urged, his voice bearing all of the aggression and anger that Sam had hoped her classmates would bring. In a way, Danny being reported as missing is actually _helping_ him. Her classmates were distraught, especially once they were forced to face the fact of how horribly they’ve treated him and that now he might be _dead_ and were redirecting their anger and fear towards the GIW.

“Push!” Kwan yelled to reaffirm Dash’s order as the mass of kids continued pressing forward as much as they could. They were all straining with the effort, soaked in sweat and hot behind their layers of clothing and masks, but they all knew that this would be the easiest part of their task. 

Kwan reached behind him and grabbed a girl in a black long sleeve whose hair was wrapped in a bandana before pulling her upwards towards him. It took Sam a second to even recognize that the girl was _Jazz._ They were both sporting blue bandanas, the only thing singling them out from the mass of people around them, and grim expressions half-hidden behind their masks. 

Once they managed to break through the guards, Jazz and Kwan would be in charge of continuing to lead the crowd further in before scattering. Jazz would be in charge of directing the group of people on ATV’s and bikes and skateboards to scatter and cause chaos and confusion once on the GIW’s inner property. They were armed with spray paint, paintball guns, and the Fenton Crammer along with _tons_ of other mischievous weapons. 

Kwan would be on foot, keeping his group closer together to ensure no one can be singled out or arrested. They were armed with riot shields that were ‘borrowed’ from Amity’s police department and from Valerie’s dad’s company. Surprisingly, he was the one to acquire several dozen outfits of riot gear and riot shields to arm the students. 

Both Kwan and Jazz’s unit were acting as the main distraction force and were to draw the majority of the GIW resources out of the building and towards the chaos they would be raining outside. The distraction would allow for Valerie to slip away and do her thing and them attracting the attention of most of the GIW’s security units would aid in her escape, hopefully with Danny in tow. 

Best outcome? Danny would come and _really_ raise hell and force the GIW to surrender and allow all of them to escape. Sam and Dash knew, however, that this was somewhat unlikely. They had both volunteered for a separate mission: the false invasion. 

They would take an ATV close to the GIW building opposite the side Val was intended to use for escape and actually infiltrate the facility. This would force any remaining guards to converge on them rather than Valerie and Danny. They both were well aware that they were likely to be arrested or shot but volunteered anyways. The fact that they were armed with ecto-weapons and protected by a bulletproof vest did little to quell their fear. 

If Valerie, for some reason, was captured or failed at getting Danny out, Sam knew that she would risk everything to either break Valerie free or save Danny herself. 

Sam growled as she pushed with all of her strength against the police shield she was wielding. Everyone around her was doing the same, fending off the guards and pressing forward steadily while more students filed in through the destroyed electric fence behind them. 

Dash shouted beside her, heaving his entire body against the guards between them and their goal and multiple other people did the same until, finally, one guard lost his footing and went down, shattering their entire line of defense. The students took full advantage, shoving relentlessly against those in front of them until they too were pushed back. 

The guards were eventually spread too thin and had to regroup, leaving a gap just large enough for the first round of ATVs and different vehicles to breakthrough. 

The guards were confused and scrambling for something to do as the different vehicles ripped past, scattering madly. 

Dash grabbed her and hauled her onto their own ATV that was silver-green, with the Fenton name hastily covered by black spray paint that would _hopefully_ wash off. Dash turned the ATV on and revved the engine, Sam hopping on behind him while arming her paintball gun. She opened fire on the huddle of GIW agents who instantly blanched and began wiping at the paint covering their once pristine suits before finally regrouping enough to raise their shields. 

Just as they aimed something that looked suspiciously like an _actual_ gun at them, Dash floored it, almost knocking Sam off of the vehicle. She wrapped an arm around his waist, holding on for dear life as he raced them towards the GIW building. There were dozens of agents filing out into the yard each dressed head to toe in full riot gear, their white armor gleaming so brightly in the sun it was hard to look at them. 

Sam aimed the paintball gun, feeling the wind whip against her face as Dash turned hastily so as not to be riding towards the small army forming to meet them. She opened fire on the guards, but the paintballs splattered harmlessly against their shields. 

“Smoke bomb!” Dash yelled over the roar of the engine and Sam reached forward and pulled said weapon from his belt. 

“Pull us closer!” She ordered and Dash turned them around, waiting as the army steadily approached the main group that Jazz was leading. Sam spotted Kwan trying to distract the army, but they were paying him no mind as they advanced on their people on the ground. 

Dash sped towards the army from their rear, pulling Sam just close enough for her to light the fuse and toss it into the small crowd of men. Soon, pink smoke was spewing from the canister, making it so the army couldn’t see. 

“Yeah! Nice!” Kwan yelled at Dash and Sam before turning and racing towards the basketball team who was armed with the Fenton Crammer.

So far, the GIW’s forces were stretched really thin by the majority of units who were busy trying to catch the different kids cruising around on skateboards and bicycles and ATVs.

Dash handed her another smoke canister and pulled them close to another group of agents. These agents fired some sort of ecto shots at them that Dash managed to swerve to avoid as Sam hurled the canister at them. This canister seemed to burst on impact and green smoke billowed in the air, soon covering the entire group of agents and stretching high into the sky. 

The sounds of students screaming angrily and the rip of weapons were soon overshadowed by the sound of chopper blades cutting through the air before a voice played over a loud intercom. “You are trespassing on restricted government property. Leave now or be met with force. You are trespassing on restricted-” 

The monotone voice droned on and Dash yelled at them to go to hell before accelerating, pulling Same towards Kwan and the basketball team that was currently trapping a group of agents behind trees. The basketball team had used the Fenton Crammer to shrink trees and then regrow them once in the agent's path. They were growing the trees until they were almost three times the normal size, impossible to climb over. 

It was ingenious and really slowed down the reinforcements from reaching Jazz’s group who was steadily gaining ground. There were numerous vehicles swarming the agents and pelting them with paintballs, water balloons, and kool-aid sprayed from water guns. The agents were now a very colorful group of angry men and women.

“You guys go! We’ve got this!” Kwan yelled and Dash looked to her to see if she agreed. At Sam’s nod, Dash’s face melted into a grim expression of determination before he sped them towards the GIW facility. Two different ATVs followed them, helping defend the agents that were trying to shoot their tires. 

Sam armed her wrist rays, hoping she wouldn’t have to use them because she wasn’t quite sure whether they were lethal or not, but knowing all the same that she would do _whatever_ it took to free Danny, no matter the consequences. Just as they come up to the building, she felt a vibration on her wrist. _Valerie had him!_

“Red found him! It’s fucking _working!_ ” Sam shouted and Dash laughed loudly and shouted it even louder, leading to the people that had followed them also shouting and laughing in victory. 

_Almost_ . Sam thought. Danny was _almost_ free. 

Dash had the Fenton Bazooka in his lap and as they pulled close to the entrance to the building, he leveled it at the entrance. The facility had its front doors blocked off by metal protective sheets, which would have been a problem, but with one shot, the doors burst open, leaving green smoke and melting metal in the wave of the blast. Dash was almost knocked from the four-wheeler by the force of the blast, but Sam tried to steady him, remembering her own experiences with the bazooka. 

The basketball players that had followed them were whooping and cheering as Sam and Dash abandoned their ATV and headed towards the darkened building. Sam glanced back to see a player wearing a Danny Phantom hoodie salute her before jumping on their abandoned ATV and circling to defend them from agents trying to come from their rear. 

Dash hurled a purple smoke canister into the building and as soon as smoke filled the dark room, they ran in hearing the coughing of agents that had been waiting in the room for them. Dash had a death grip on her wrist as Sam led him to the right, feeling along the wall before they finally broke free of the smoke. Sam fired her paintball gun at the two agents in front of them, coating their helmets in paint so they couldn’t see as she and Dash ran past them. 

They were in. 

* * *

  
  
  


Tucker and Mr. Grey -Valerie’s dad- were stationed in the Fenton Ops Center along with several other tech-savvy students, waiting in anticipation for the ability to _do something_ . Here they were sitting in an airconditioned high-security room, safe from the world while their friends and, in Mr. Grey’s case, his _daughter_ , risked life and limb to save Danny. 

Tucker’s fingers were just itching to start typing away to hack into the GIW and take down every defense system they owned and stir up enough havoc to interrupt their communications and confuse their men on the ground. With their communications down, it would be hard for them to regroup and go after Danny and Val once they escaped.

 _And_ , they would have to take down the ghost shield for just long enough for Valerie to escape. On top of that, Valerie’s dad was tasked with guiding her and Danny out of the facility and would be directing them towards the rendezvous spot. 

They all had very important jobs, but couldn’t do a damn thing until Valerie gave them the alert that she had plugged them into the GIW’s system. Val’s dad, despite being a very large, and muscular man, seemed downright terrified from where he sat chewing on his fingernails while staring at the screen that would notify them each time Valerie sent them a signal. 

Tucker couldn’t blame the man for being scared. His daughter was currently infiltrating a government facility to help a dead kid. Well, a _half_ -dead kid, but still. They had received the alert a few minutes ago that Valerie had located Danny. She was the centerpiece of the entire operation. If they failed, she would take the brunt of the punishment from the government. 

He wanted to voice his thoughts that Valerie was insanely strong and that if anyone could pull this off, it was her. Instead, Tucker just felt an intense pressure in his throat as if his stomach was trying to crawl out of his mouth. His hands were shaking in anticipation of the task at hand. 

He, his daughter, and literally _everyone_ involved could be imprisoned for what they are about to do. Which was why once they were in, it was Tucker’s job, along with several others, to not only disrupt communications and such, but with digging up as much dirt on this particular government facility as possible. With enough secretive information, they could bargain with the GIW for them to not press any charges if they swore not to release the information to the public. 

Well, _hopefully_ . Tucker doesn’t really know; it was _Sam_ that had the idea to blackmail the government into not pressing charges or detaining anyone captured during the raid. He just hopes that _she_ doesn’t get captured because he’s not really sure what to do with the information he _does_ find. He’d have to confer with some of the particularly devious that attend their school. Maybe Vlad Masters could help? 

Tucker dreaded having to ask the man anything, but this _was_ an all-hands-on-deck situation. 

He was pulled out of his thoughts as they received another alert from Valerie, signaling that she had gained them access! Instantly, the entire atmosphere of the room shifted, now filled with the deafening sound of the clicking of keyboards as the occupants were each hyper-focused on their screens, determined to raise hell.

Tucker felt sweat slide down the side of his face as he worked. He was terrified of failing. If he somehow couldn’t pull this off, then Danny would suffer. Danny and every other person he and Sam had dragged into helping. But he couldn’t afford to even _think_ of failure. He would succeed; _they_ would succeed. The power of this many people coming together for a common cause was palpable. 

By the end of the day, Danny would be back home with Sam and Tucker by his side, the same way it’s always been. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


Valerie retraces her steps, flying as fast as she dares back to Danny’s holding cell. She’s so relieved she could cry when she fights her way past the guards standing outside of his door and finally breaks into his room to see Danny staring at her in confusion, unaware that he was right in the middle of his own liberation. 

She’s relieved she didn’t have to use the ‘Fenton Finder’ or the ‘Fenton Boo-merang’ to find him. Tucker had insisted she bring both in case she ran into any complications.

She smiles at Danny underneath her mask, but Danny growls at her, fighting his way to his feet. 

“Coming to finish me off, Red?” He snarls while taking a defensive stance while still hunched over in pain. 

“What? No! Danny, it’s me, Valerie,” she said while pulling her mask down. She reached in her pocket and pulled out the remote she had stolen from Dr. West before clicking the little unlock button in the top corner. The little disc on Danny’s neck released with a small hiss before clattering to the ground. Danny knocked it away as if it were on fire and almost instantly, white rings surrounded him and in a flash, Danny Phantom was replaced by a sickly-looking Danny Fenton. 

Danny stares at Valerie in horror, as if expecting her to become angry at his secret. Valerie, instead, looked mortified for an entirely different reason. Her mouth was open in shock and she quickly shot the two noticeable cameras in the corner of the room. 

_She had just blown his entire secret_.

She rushes over to Danny and pulls his arm over her shoulder to help him stand. 

“Y-you’re not mad?” He asks and he sounds so surprised that Valerie wants nothing more than to just give him a hug. 

“ _Me?_ Danny, I shot you… tried to kill you so many times _I can’t even count them_ and you’re worried that I’m mad you didn’t tell me who you were?” She feels tears prick her eyes and curses under her breath and tries to force them away as she leads Danny to her hoverboard. “No, I’m not mad. I’m _sorry_ , Danny. So, so sorry.” She hears her voice break but tries to ignore how weak she feels in favor of looking at Danny’s face. 

He’s looking at her in awe as if he never would have _dreamed_ of this. Even though his sweaty bangs, hollow cheeks, and the dark circles under his eyes, the most notable feature on his face was the small smile he gave her. To Valerie, that smile meant _forgiveness_. The burden she had been carrying was lifted somewhat. She still felt guilty, but Danny forgave her, so maybe she could start forgiving herself. 

She smiles back while trying to balance him on the board. 

“Wait!” Valerie steadies Danny with one arm while digging the ‘Ecto-dejecto’ out of her pocket. She had seen the stuff help save Danielle, so she had brought it just in case he would need it. 

She fumbles with the device for several long seconds, hands shaking with the fear of how the hell she was supposed to get Danny out of here and whether he would be able to even recover from his injuries and the horrors he’s undoubtedly faced. Finally, she cursed, angry tears burning in her eyes as she felt Danny’s unnaturally cold hand settle over hers. 

“Here, let me,” he says in a hoarse voice before taking the device and pressing a nondescript lever on the side that releases a green mist that soon coats Danny’s midsection. 

Valerie takes the device from him and, while still depressing the lever, aims the device to spray Danny’s face, chest, and even his legs. She sprays until the container is empty and waits several seconds to see the effects. 

At first, Danny crumples over, wincing in pain leading Valerie to question whether the Fentons had gotten around to actually _fixing_ it to where it would weaken ghosts, but before she can even finish the thought, blue eyes meet hers, a sleepy smile on his face. 

The color is slowly returning to his face and he straightens, heaving a big sigh before he lets go of her completely. She watches in amazement as the same white rings reappear flashing across his body and turning her friend and classmate into who used to be her worst enemy. 

Phantom is standing before her, but not the proud and sarcastic nuisance she’s used to. Instead, he stumbles and she catches him. 

“Whoa,” he says, leaning against her and pressing a hand against his head. “That took a lot more out of me than I thought it would.” He gives her a glance while steadying himself. “I guess the ecto-dejecto isn’t a fix-all for ghosts. Bummer,” he says while Valerie maneuvers them unto her board. 

Danny, although no longer looking on the verge of passing out, still seems utterly drained. He was struggling to keep his head up and his eyes open; he wouldn’t be much help if they had to fight their way out of here. 

Despite Sam’s distraction, they barely made it down the first corridor before they encountered a horde of guards all converging on Danny’s containment cell. 

“C’mon, dad,” Valerie whines under her breath. She wasn’t sure how to get out, nor would she until her dad managed to contact her with the schematics and direct their escape path. 

She turned away from the guards and turned the corner only to meet more armed reinforcements. They were trapped. She would have to fight tooth and nail if she was going to get Danny out of here. 

Before she could even aim her rifle, there was a green explosion blasting the first row of guards clean off of the floor and down the hallway. She glanced at the acidic fire still burning in Danny’s hand and noted the look of hatred mixed with fear dancing in his eyes. 

He looked like a cornered animal and Valerie had to grab his hand and lower it to keep him from blasting the already down guards. 

“S-save your energy, Danny. We have to stall for time until my dad contacts me, okay?” She says while flying them over the bodies on the floor, trying not to look to see whether any of them were bleeding or severely injured. Hopefully, their armor protected them somewhat…

She knows she shouldn’t care, and to be honest, _she doesn’t_ . Those guards remind her far too much of herself for her to _really_ care, as dark a thought as that is. She’s more concerned about _Danny_. She doesn’t want him to go down the path she did; she doesn’t want him to do something he’ll regret later.

They take another turn where four guards are blocking their path. Valerie simply takes aim and fires a weighted net at the guards from her rifle. The force of the net knocks them down and Valerie ducks down, pulling Danny with her as they go over the downed bodies and take the next turn. 

She’s flying as fast as she dares, but Danny’s added weight is throwing off her balance and slowing them down, especially since there’s nothing but twists and turns in this building. 

An alarm suddenly cut on, deafening them with its horrible wail. Danny cried out and covered his ears, crumpling to his knees and clutching his head. Valerie stiffened in fear, barely recovering quick enough to grab Danny before they took a sharp turn down another hallway. She grabbed the back of his jumpsuit and hauled him back to his feet, digging in her pocket for the keepsake Sam had given her for this mission. 

She finally found the Fenton Phones and handed them to Danny as he quickly put them in. According to Sam, they filter out spectral noise. Thankfully, they seemed to work and Danny shakily got back to his feet.

They were flying blind for now, needing Tucker to finish taking over the GIW defense systems so her dad could communicate with them to give them directions. After _far_ too long of them basically playing chicken with the agents, she _finally_ hears a staticky voice in her ear.

“Dad!” She says, happy to hear him ramble on in her ear about how proud he was and how thankful he was that she was okay. She smiled but tried to refocus him on their mission. “How do we get out?”

Her father diligently guided them through the twists and turns, Valerie taking down every person in their way. Danny helped sometimes, but he seemed to be running off of pure adrenaline and hate. Each shot made him slump further and further against her, but he still fought to stand. She felt her feet beginning to slip on her hoverboard, and looked down to see green ectoplasm coating her board. She looked at Danny, who had one arm slung around her shoulders and the other pressed against his abdomen where green blood was steadily seeping through his white gown. 

Despite Danny barely keeping his feet underneath him and bleeding profusely, his reputation seemed to be enough to ward off the more timid of the guards. Several seemed hesitant to attack just because they _saw_ Phantom, even if he was barely conscious. When he raised his blood-soaked hand to aim, most just scattered and ran for cover. 

“Alright, Val. The door to your right has been unlocked; open it and head through there. There will be an elevator. Open the doors and fly straight up. Take floor 6. You’re on floor 2 right now,” her dad directed. Valerie followed his directions as quickly as possible. 

“O-okay, dad. I’m there,” she said while readjusting her grip on Danny. He was losing a lot of blood or ectoplasm or _whatever_. Valerie felt as if she was shouldering most of his weight which meant he was probably really close to losing consciousness. 

She tried not to focus too much on things she couldn’t help. What she could do was ensure that she got Danny to their rendezvous point as quickly as possible. 

“Okay. Take the third hallway on your left and at the very end should be doors leading to a helicopter pad. Once outside, fly straight ahead. Don’t gain any altitude. Tucker is unlocking that section of their ghost shield, but be quick, Val,” he said, worry clear in his voice. 

“Okay dad,” she said, trying to sound confident. She took the correct turns, exhilarated once she exited onto the helicopter pad, finally seeing the sunlight rather than the harsh white light of the facility.

She skimmed the pad, staying as close as she dared to the floor. According to her dad’s warning, she would need to keep this same altitude, probably to avoid frying Danny. 

“Alright, dad. We’re out of the building,” she updated, repositioning her hold on Danny. He was still fighting to both stay on his feet and in his ghost form. 

Once they were out of the building, she spared a moment to glance at the discord below. The distraction was working _wonders_. She doesn’t know how they managed to shrink the flagpole or place trees randomly throughout the GIW’s property, but it was working. The agents were being pressed back against the sea of angry teenagers. 

Someone must have noticed them because soon the field of people was filled with cheering. Danny didn’t stir at the applause and Valerie was about to reposition him when suddenly her mask display was lit up with red warning signs. She twisted out of the way and managed to avoid a strike from the white helicopter behind her. The blast whizzed past her and Danny and instead blew a crater into a, thankfully empty, parking lot across from where the students were gathered. 

She had already screwed up the altitude she was meant to stay at, and cursed, alerting Tucker of the situation before turning to face the helicopter. She dives to avoid another blast, almost falling off when she has to catch Danny’s full weight. He groans and Valerie can see a fresh flow of ectoplasm soak his chest. 

She had most likely just ripped a couple of his stitches. She winced, at the knowledge. 

No, she couldn’t take on a military helicopter with Danny barely conscious on her board. She needed him to be the priority. She just had to escape with him. 

“Tucker?” She asked, already turning and flying back towards the ghost shield. 

“Just, uh… stay steady, Red! I’ll open up the panel in front of you,” a person that _definitely_ wasn’t Tucker said. 

Valerie was doubtful but did as the person said, keeping her board straight and at the same altitude. She slowed as much as she dared, all the while watching the helicopter closely. They approached where she figured the ghost shield would be, and they passed through with no problems. 

_Thank God_. Valerie thought, as she sped up and gained altitude, wanting to be out of the GIWs weapon range.

She took a deep breath before speaking. “We made it,” she said, trying to lift Danny’s head. 

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” her father’s voice whispered through her earpiece. His voice was much less staticky now that they were out of the facility.

“Me too,” she responded, too distracted by trying to get Danny to look up to properly respond to her father. “Danny?” She questioned, worry leaking into her voice as she realized she was holding almost _all_ off his weight. “Danny?!” 

The only response was two white rings flashing over him and leaving an unconscious Danny Fenton in her grip.

* * *

Dash hears the deafening cheering and excitement of his peers all the way in the facility. They must have made it out. He’s too nervous to actually feel relief, but at least now whatever happens will be worth it. He and Sam turn a corner, only to be met with a small group of guards. 

Sam’s the first to react and fire, taking down the first two guards with her wrist rays. The guards land with large scorch marks on the chest of their white suits. Dash charges the third guard before he can react. He still has the bazooka strapped on his back but doesn’t want to risk using it on a person, especially since it could apparently melt metal. He punches the guy in his helmet, accomplishing nothing other than hurting his hand. The guy raises his gun and Dash grabs it, shoving the guard against the wall as they grapple for the weapon.

He hears Sam fire behind him, probably taking care of the remaining threats. He finally wrangles the blaster from the guard and smacks him over the head, knocking him to the ground. 

He glances down at the gun, giving himself a few seconds to figure out how to use it before following after Sam, who guides them down a random hallway. He dutifully follows, watching behind them to ensure they aren’t trapped. 

“C’mon,” Sam yells loudly. “I think it’s this way!” She yells, trying to attract more attention their way. 

“I’m right behind you!” He yells back halfheartedly, knowing that he was basically throwing away his entire life. They were going to be arrested and he would miss out on any football scholarships or college opportunities he would need in the future. Hell, the guards might kill them. These weapons didn’t look like they were meant for crowd control.

The truth is, however, he doesn’t really _care_ what happens to him. 

Ever since Danny Fenton went missing, Dash has realized a lot about himself. One, he was really horrible to Danny for most of their lives, and for what? Sure, Fenton was annoying sometimes, but Dash made his life _hell_ for no real reason. And now? Danny was _gone_. 

He fires at a guard in a group of three coming towards them from their left. The man screams as he’s thrown backward and slammed into a wall, but Dash doesn’t care. Before he and Sam actually infiltrated the building, he had been nervous and scared of the consequences, but now, he just wanted to somehow make up for all the wrongs he’s done in his miserable, short life.

And that’s the second thing he’s realized about himself. Dash was mainly mean to the geeks at school to get his frustration at _himself_ out. 

When he failed a math exam? He took it out on someone else. When he fumbled the ball in the last quarter and cost his team the game? He’d take his anger out on someone else. It’s been a pattern for all of his life. Even now, he was pissed about how he’s treated Danny and how he might _never be able to make it up to him_ , and how does he deal with it? By invading a government facility and assaulting the guards.

He’s more like his father than he’s ever realized. The last thing he realized about himself? He doesn’t want to be that person anymore; he just hoped it wasn’t too late for change. 

Sam presses her hand against her ear as if she’s listening to someone before kicking open a door and rushing in, Dash right behind her. They’re in a computer room. 

“Hey, what are we doing here?” He asks, but Sam ignores him for several long moments as she frantically searches for something. 

“Uh- I-I gotta erase a file. Um… some of us have been identified,” she says, but Dash can tell she’s lying. He doesn’t press her, though, instead just standing guard while she looks.

He scuffs his feet against the floor to break the uncanny silence of Sam mumbling to whoever was speaking in her ear and clicking away at a keyboard. This was an invasion. He’d figure there would be more sounds, but the GIW was just as dull on the inside as it was on the outside other than the few guards they’d gotten to pummel. 

Well, of course _right now_ the outside resembled something more like the _ultimate_ paintball match, but that hardly took away from how plain and nondescript their boring white building was. 

“Hey, where do you think all the guards are?” He finally asks and Sam looks up at him, eyebrows creased in concentration. 

“They’re probably regrouping to go after the Huntress and Phantom,” she says nervously biting her lips. 

Dash doesn’t know how she’s keeping it together. She and Tucker seemed to have planned almost all of this (well, he’s sure the Huntress had a lot to say since she’s doing most everything). If he were responsible for this entire mission and all of the people involved, he’d be a total wreck.

Hell, he _is_ a total wreck just because he feels responsible for one single person: Danny Fenton.

He’s heard the rumors. Some whisper that he ventured into the ghost zone and died and his parents are covering it up so they don’t lose their license... Some people, mainly the news, think that he was kidnapped and that it’s proof of a new human trafficking ring in Amity. Others argue that he ran away or killed himself because he was being bullied at school. 

That was by far the most widely believed rumor. 

He _knows_ that everyone at school blames _him_ for Danny’s disappearance, even if they don’t say it. The worst part? Dash agrees. Even Kwan has had a hard time talking to him ever since Danny vanished. Everyone is slowly pulling further and further away from him as if distancing themselves so he can’t drag them down with him when the truth is finally revealed.

The only people that _haven’t_ treated him poorly were Sam and Tucker. They aren’t blaming him for Danny’s disappearance. He’s not sure _why_ they aren’t blaming him or at least pissed off, but he assumes it’s because they know something that the rest of the town doesn't. The Fentons would most likely share important things about Danny’s disappearance with them. Or maybe Danny really did just run away and has kept in touch with them?

He shakes his head to clear out the clutter of thoughts. He needs to stay focused on the task at hand. He’s sure these thoughts will keep him up tonight as they have every night before and he’ll have ample time to beat himself up about it later. This mission is the one thing that he’s been able to dedicate himself to that’s actually served as a healthy distraction and he can’t risk messing it up.

Also, it makes him feel a little better to help Sam and Tucker. It’s almost as if he’s trying to make it up to Danny. He’s not sure _why_ they’re so determined to free Phantom rather than focus on Danny’s whereabouts, but he’s going to help either way. He trusts their judgment. Besides, Danny would help them no matter what this was about. 

Perhaps Sam and Tucker are doing this for the same reason he was, to get his mind off of what happened to Danny. Maybe they know whatever happened and are trying to cope just as much as everyone else is.

Although, Sam and Tucker aren’t the _only_ reason he wanted to help when he heard that they were trying to free Phantom. Dash isn’t afraid to admit that he admires Phantom and looks up to him. 

Although if you would have asked him three months ago, he would have never seen himself infiltrating a government facility to help the ghost. He might have signed a few petitions or something, but now? It was the _least_ he could do to help a real hero.

“Tucker! I’m being serious! I don’t know how to do this and we’re running out of time! Dumb it down for me,” Sam whisper shouted. Dash tried to ignore her, although his curiosity was growing as he instead looked down the hall outside. 

_Phantom_ would never bully someone and then have to deal with whether he played a part in killing them or just made what short time they had on earth miserable instead. If he ever wanted to be proud of himself, he needed to start acting like a hero, even if just in small ways.

After several more minutes pass of Sam and Tucker arguing, Sam finally gasps and Dash sees a smile on her face. “I got it. Now, how do I wipe it?” She asks with a deadly serious expression. 

Dash looks away from Sam, somewhat bored at the lack of guards, and instead at a screen mounted on the wall. There’s a video playing on it and Dash watches as he sees the Red Huntress burst into where Phantom was apparently being held. This was apparently an old video since the duo should have made it safely out a few minutes ago if the loud cheering had meant anything. Speaking of, shouldn’t _they_ be retreating soon? Since Phantom was already long gone? 

Maybe Sam is deleting the video of him being kidnapped? Or destroying the harddrive of it or something? Either way, whatever he’s seeing on this screen is apparently whatever she’s watching on _her_ screen. Whatever it was, it must be important for Sam to be this stressed out about it.

The ghost in question looks _horrible_ and Dash fears it’s already too late for him. But no, Phantom is strong; he’ll make it. He’s a hero. He and the Huntress both are, in their own ways. 

He only sees the Huntress’s back and can’t tell what she’s doing, but whatever it is, it causes Phantom to flash white, leaving…

“Fenton?” Dash whispers, eyes transfixed on the screen before him. 

  
  
  


* * *

Sam snaps her head up only to see Dash staring at a screen across from her. 

A screen showing…

_Shit._

“D-Dash it’s not what you think-” she starts but is stopped by the sound of feet marching their way towards them. “Dash, we have to leave. Now,” she says before finishing wiping the file off of their system. She’s royally messed up by not noticing that the computer she happened to pick was being _projected onto the massive television display_. But she couldn’t worry about that now. She had to destroy the room and get both Dash and herself out of here. 

“Sam, you have about two minutes before their backup protocols come online and we’ll lose access,” Tucker says in her ear, voice rising in panic. Sam takes a deep breath and forces herself to remain calm.

Sam walks over to Dash, who looks pale and in shock. “Dash, we have to _go_ ,” Sam urges, grabbing the bazooka off of his back and pushing him out into the hallway. They have at least a dozen guards coming towards them from both directions, but that’s not what Sam’s worried about. She turns the bazooka against the computer room and fires. The small explosion blows her and Dash against the wall, just in time to protect them from the guards that have opened fire. 

The smoke from the blast is covering them for now, but the cover wouldn’t last for long.

“Dash, listen. Danny is- Well he’s…” She trails off, hands shaking at the fear that she might not be able to get them both out and that Dash might talk and reveal Danny’s secret. She feels tears in her eyes and she grits her teeth. There’s no way she’s come this far just to fail now by blowing Danny’s identity because of _Dash_ . “Look Dash, Danny is a _fucking_ hero and you _owe_ it to him to-” She started before Dash interrupts her by standing. 

He reaches a hand down for her, his face a mixture of rage and relief. She takes his hand, an uncertain look on her face as he pulls her to her feet. He fumbles with his belt before retrieving their second to last smoke bomb and throws it behind them, leaving a trail of neon green smoke to hide them. Dash takes the bazooka from her and Sam fires wildly in the opposite direction with her wrist rays. There are shouts of pain, so she assumes at least some of her blasts made their mark. 

They charge, barely weaseling past the downed guards. Dash is sprinting, his grip firm on her wrist as he leads them out the same way they came in. After several twists and turns and firing upon the straggling group of guards, they finally burst into the sunlight, grass under their feet as they continue to run. 

She’s just thankful that Tucker warned her so she could get rid of that file. She’s not sure where Dash’s head is at, but she will deal with him later. As of _right now_ , Danny’s secret is safe. And if Sam had to guess, Valerie made sure _he_ ’s safe as well. 

A kid with swim goggles pulls up on a spray-painted four-wheeler splattered with paint and charred in some areas, waving at them to get on. They do, Sam still firing at the guards that have mobilized and gotten on their own vehicles. There’s clear gas flowing through the air and the kid driving yells at them to close their eyes and hold their breath. They do as they drive through the clear cloud and Sam can feel her eyes burn and water despite being closed as tightly as she can manage. 

The GIW was fighting back. 

She opens her eyes upon hearing the kid shouting obscenities at all the guards they whip past, laughing madly. They’ve exited the clear gas and Sam fights to not rub at her watery, burning eyes. 

Once the kid works their way from behind GIW lines, however, Sam and Dash have to focus just on holding on as the kid races them back towards the main group at breakneck speeds, flipping off the straggler or downed guards that were abandoned as their line was pushed back.

Sam turns her attention to Dash, whose knuckles are white from how tight he is holding on, but his face is unnaturally void of emotion as he stares blankly in front of him. She needed to bring Dash along for the rest of their mission for fear of what might happen if she lets him out of her sight. 

They pull up beside the main group that is now in a steady retreat and hop off just as the kid waves before racing back towards a group of three students that were separated from the main group. 

The students kept being cut off by the helicopter that would shoot at the fence line, trapping them all inside the GIW borders, probably just to be rounded up and arrested once they managed to mount an assault. 

She was about to ask Tucker what to do about the copter, but Dash had already taken aim and fired the bazooka, blasting the helicopter to shreds. 

It spiraled wildly before crashing into the building, causing an explosion that sent a heatwave all the way to where the students were gathered.

“Uh, what was that?” Tucker asked, but Sam ignored him. 

“How much time do we have to retreat, Tuck?” She asked, grabbing at Dash who was staring motionlessly at the destruction he had caused. She pulled him back towards the group. 

“Well, their defenses will be back on in just a few seconds. Their reinforcements are twelve minutes out and whatever that sound was, I’m sure you guys just _really_ pissed them off. You guys need to get the hell out of there,” Tucker spoke in her ear, his voice frantic and worried. 

“No worries, Tucker. I’m on it,” Sam says. “Dash? We have to work on getting everyone out of her. I _swear_ to you I’ll explain everything later. Hell, you can even come with me for the rest of the mission and see for yourself,” she says, not waiting for his reaction and, instead, dragging him the rest of the way to the group. 

She begins shouting orders at the crowd, urging them to move faster and to stay in groups. According to the plan, once off of GIW property, everyone would split into smaller groups and flee, making it near impossible for the GIW to track them all down. 

The students all filed out and spread out once entering the thick forest and as soon as they heard the order, they began to take off the masks and jackets and hats and goggles they’d been wearing leaving a normal-looking group of teenagers. 

They then all split into groups and darted in different directions, but Sam grabbed Dash’s hand and pulled him towards an abandoned Fenton ATV that had been spray-painted, _ugh_ , pink.

She had no clue how they were ever going to round up all of the Fenton’s tech that they had ‘borrowed’ and somewhat vandalized for this mission, but she couldn’t worry about that right now. 

She and Dash got on and Sam began driving them back towards Fenton works. Hopefully, Danny and Valerie would be back before them and already be treating Danny’s injuries. 

God, she couldn’t _wait_ to see Danny.

* * *

  
  


Paulina just _knew_ that this would be the day that Phantom would finally notice her. For once, she would be helping to rescue _him_ instead of the other way around. The Huntress would arrive with Phantom in tow and Paulina would sneak them away to safety! 

She couldn’t help but smile, excited at the thought of her crush _finally_ noticing her. Oh, this would be so _romantic!_ Star had tagged along because _of course,_ she would. They were best friends and Star was the _best_ wing woman. Star would drive so Paulina could spend the time in the back of the van with Phantom! 

Her hero would show up, bruised and maybe a little bloody, but still just as cute as always. He would probably give her that troublemaker smile and thank her for her help as she carted their group away from the awful GIW. 

He would _finally_ notice her, and not just as some damsel in distress. 

She had been _so_ excited when she saw the Red Huntress’s hoverboard coming towards their vehicle, but the butterflies instantly died when she saw the Huntress and Phantom soaked in green blood. _Phantom’s blood_. 

Said ghost was barely conscious, and he seemed to be struggling fiercely against sleep. His entire body was supported by an exhausted-looking Huntress. Paulina rushed to help as the Huntress landed, not caring that the outfit she had picked out just to impress Phantom was currently being soaked through by his blood as she helped support his weight.

They trudged their way back towards the van, Paulina trying to take as much weight as possible from the Huntress. 

“W-what _happened?!_ ” She asked, horrified that her own _government_ had allowed this. But there was more than enough proof as she saw the small stitches lacing his body when his ruined gown shifted to show parts of his chest. 

The Huntress just shook her head miserably as they finished their trek and set Phantom down carefully in the back of the van. They leaned him against the side, but he was slumped over, halfheartedly pressing his hand against his abdomen while it bled. 

For several seconds, she and the Huntress stood in silence, and Paulina appraised the bloody Huntress carefully before making up her mind. For once, Phantom needed to be saved and _she_ was going to do her part to help. 

“Get in and ride with him,” Paulina instructed and the red-masked vigilante looked at her before nodding and climbing in with the ghost, holding his head in her lap as he finally laid down with a groan. 

_That should be me_. Paulina thought selfishly, but she pulled her mind out of her jealous thoughts and instead approached her best friend.

Star was covering her mouth and crying, and Paulina grabbed her and shook her to get her out of her horrified stare. “Go get in the passenger seat and text Tucker that we’re on our way,” Paulina instructed before crossing over to the driver’s side. 

She had to fight to keep her tears from spilling over as she drove them to FentonWorks. It didn’t help that Star was trembling and hugging her knees to her chest, seemingly still in shock over seeing a person that ripped apart, even if that person was already technically dead. She could even hear the Huntress’s soft sobs as she held the ghost’s battered body. 

Paulina couldn’t blame her. She had successfully done her job, as difficult and risky as it was. Now, it was time for Paulina to do hers. She dutifully listened as Tucker gave her directions to avoid the GIW’s search parties and roadblocks until they finally arrived at FentonWorks. 

She opened her door and exited, but was stopped short at the sight of the Fentons’ strange assault vehicle sitting in the driveway. Tucker had said that the Fentons wouldn’t be home…

The back door of the van opened and the Huntress began pulling Phantom out. Paulina pulled one of his arms over hers shoulders and aided the Huntress in pulling him up the steps. Star opened the door and Paulina and the Huntress slowly maneuvered through the door frame. 

They both froze at the sight of Maddie and Jack Fenton standing in the doorway, concern, confusion, and rage written on their faces. 

Paulina felt a lump form in her throat as she stared at the menacing hunters. She hadn’t helped save Phantom… just led him to the slaughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one chapter left! I'm so excited to wrap this story up.  
> Also, depending on how long the next chapter is, it will either be broken up into two separate chapters or, most likely, there will be one more chapter and then another story added as an epilogue sort of thing. That would make this a series, so be on the lookout on the next update!
> 
> Anyways, let me know what you think!


	7. The Returned Hero

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all....
> 
> Good lord it has been MONTHS. School this semester on top of the pandemic has been utter HELL. But I'm so excited to finally have found a break and a chance to work on my stories!
> 
> Sorry if the time gap caused anyone to lose interest! This is the last chapter of Corrupted by the Grave and I hope ya'll enjoy it. I loved being able to write again, I had really missed it!

Maddie might often be oblivious to her children’s wishes, but she was in no way ignorant. Although in the past, she had allowed herself to  _ choose _ ignorance and ignore the facts that were staring her in the face. 

Like her son.

She had been in denial for almost a full year, but she could no longer lie to herself. She wasn’t just hurting herself anymore; her son was hurting too. It’s not like she’d  _ known _ and blatantly ignored it, but rather she never pulled her head out of her research and her theories to question what was possible. 

She’d have never thought all those years ago when she chose this as her path of study that her field would ever become this…  _ complicated _ . She had theorized that Phantom was different, but she’d been too closed-minded, too rash to consider the possibilities.

Looking back, it was all quite obvious. 

As soon as Danny had gone missing, something in Maddie broke. She’ll never understand what exactly happened, but suddenly none of her research or discoveries mattered. Her hatred of ghosts and years of dedication to eradicating the ghostly problem from Amity lost all value.

At the base of her existence, she was just a mother. When everything else eroded away and lost all meaning, she was reduced to that of a mother. But truly, that was the most significant part of her, right? 

She’d spent the first day praying that her son’s absence was nothing more than a result of teenage rebellion. She had been furious at first. Waiting for him to finally walk through the doors reeking of alcohol and women. He  _ had _ been becoming less reliable and more secretive over the past several months, so it wouldn’t be far fetched. 

As the day stretched on, she desperately clung to her anger, knowing that if it slipped, the truth that  _ something was horribly wrong _ would creep through her carefully constructed walls. 

It was Jack who first accepted that there might be a more sinister reason as to why their child wasn’t home even though the sun was already beginning to rise once again.

They had already checked with Sam and Tucker’s parents, who swore Danny was not with them, and now, they had to take another step. As the sun broke through the darkness of night, they dialed the number for the local sheriff’s office.

Sure enough, they were told not enough time had passed for him to be reported missing.

Maddie wasn’t stupid. She acted on her own, searching Danny’s room for any clues, and finding nothing suspicious other than the presence of ghost hunting equipment and a well-used first aid kit. 

She intentionally overlooked the damning evidence of streaks of dried ectoplasm on the bottom side of the kit and green stained gauze in the bathroom garbage can. That was data she wasn’t sure she was equipped to consider right now. Instead of lingering on that, she instead interrogated Sam and Tucker, who were both nervous wrecks but still held a determined shine in their eyes as they swore up and down to differing stories.

Maddie  _ wasn’t stupid _ . 

But she definitely wasn’t equipped to accept such a terrifying truth. She opted not to tell Jack about her findings and instead focused her efforts into searching the streets and neighboring towns for a son that she knew would not be found. 

No, her son wouldn’t be found slashed in a back alley or trapped in the basement of some scum of society. He wouldn’t be found because he wasn’t lost. 

He wasn’t lost because she knew  _ exactly _ where he was. 

She had seen the GIW official on television bragging about their capture of the town’s most powerful entity. 

Sure enough, the announcement wasn’t even halfway finished before anger began pouring in from the townsfolk. Social media was flooded with hatred and threats, demanding the release of their hero. 

Maddie  _ knew _ that if the Fenton’s were to come out and side with the town for the release of the ghost, then the government may be somewhat swayed to at least  _ listen _ . However, she couldn’t bring herself to speak. Not even just to Jack. 

So she stayed silent and waited. 

She listened as Sam and Tucker and Jazz  _ and so many more  _ planned their invasion of the government facility to rescue their friend -  _ her son _ .

Still, it all felt like a rather lucid dream up until she saw first hand her son’s very  _ green _ blood drip down from his abdomen and stain the sidewalk leading up to their house. 

There he was, unconscious and bleeding with the Red Huntress on one side and Danny’s crush, Paulina, on the other. 

Once again, Maddie found herself unable to do anything but stay silent and wait. 

This couldn’t  _ really _ be her son, could it? The white fluorescent hair, burning green ectoplasmic blood, and the fact that this thing was still  _ existing despite the extensive trauma _ . Was it- Could Phantom even be considered  _ alive _ ? No, of course not. That was whimsical thinking on her part to even  _ question _ the years of her research for something as childish as this. 

No, Phantom was by no means  _ alive _ . It just wasn’t possible, despite how much she wished it were true. 

Tears filled her eyes, blessing her by blurring her vision until she couldn’t see the horror before her.

It was more likely that her son had died  _ months _ ago and some ectoplasmic leech took over his body. Or maybe ‘Phantom’ might just be a parasitic ghost that lives within a human host. If that were true, then it would still be possible that her son was alive. 

This might even be the result of a long-term possession that she had overlooked due to her inattentiveness. Worse yet, what if his prolonged exposure to ectoplasm due to their experiments caused this? 

A sob clawed its way from her throat and she had to close her eyes. There were too many unknown variables and she didn’t know how to respond. All of the scenarios clawing their way in to her overactive mind were making her lose her grasp on her sanity.

Was she supposed to allow them in her home? Was she supposed to step aside and offer tea and cookies and medical aid to a creature that resembles her son so much and yet was so,  _ so _ different at the same time? The same thing that could have potentially killed her son or could be  _ in the process _ of killing her son?

She was uselessly frozen to the spot with a stricken expression that was mirrored by the two women supporting Phantom. She shifted until she was standing between the two young women holding up the injured ghost and the entrance to her home, debating how to act. 

First, she needed to regain control of herself and of the situation. She took a deep, albeit shaky breath, before shifting her expression into a stern one. She needed to decide  _ now _ so she could act. She appraised the two humans and the barely conscious ghost before her, trying to force a solution to come to mind.

There was always the chance that this thing still  _ was _ her son.

If it wasn’t, then that would mean Danny is dead. But this ghostly…  _ thing _ couldn’t be her son. It couldn’t. So her son  _ must _ have died.

_ Did he die in an accident and she didn’t even realize it?! If he’s dead doesn’t that change whether or not he’s their son? This couldn’t be his ‘spirit’, right? Maybe his consciousness, but a ghost this powerful and different must indicate some sort of parasitic being that joined with his consciousness. Right? _

Questions and theories flooded her mind, only highlighting how much of this situation was still unknown. All of her years of study and countless working theories were useless to her in this most critical moment. 

How the hell was she supposed to let this thing in her home? 

She felt tears burn their way out of her eyes, but she tried to ignore it. There was  _ no way _ this was her son.

She felt a large, steady hand rest on her shoulder, and her face finally crumpled. 

“Maddie,” Jack said softly before stepping forwards and wrapping an arm around her waist. The sound he made as he pulled her out of the way was that of a wounded animal, but she couldn’t care as she watched the two girls carrying the unconscious ghost into her home. 

She tried desperately to quiet her sobs, but the awful noises kept coming and her body wouldn’t stop shaking. She felt sick. Her husband just held her tighter as she tried to regain her senses. 

Her eyes followed the steadily growing trail of green ectoplasm leading up the steps and past the front door, into her home. 

“D-did we do this?” She asked in a voice so soft she wasn’t even sure Jack heard her. She couldn’t determine whether Phantom was a ghost taking advantage of her son’s body or whether they were one and the same, but one thing rang true. Their work was somehow related to her son’s fate, whether directly or indirectly. 

If Danny was dead and this thing has taken up residence in his body or if he had somehow turned  _ into _ a ghost… both would ultimately be their fault. They’d ruined their child’s future, hadn’t they?

Jack simply shook his head, more in denial than in answer before pulling her closer. 

“Come on, Mads. They’ll need our help,” Jack said before guiding them both back into the house. 

Maddie took a deep breath, trying to force the body wracking sobs away so she could regain some semblance of control. She straightened her spine and pushed away from Jack. This was no doubt  _ her fault _ and she would be damned if she did nothing to fix it. She could force herself to maintain her composure for a few measly hours. Besides, she’s a scientist, too. And this would be a chance to learn the answers to some of the questions she has. 

She closed their front door with finality and deadbolted it. Next, she activated their ghost shield and all of their alarm systems.

No ghost would be infiltrating or  _ escaping _ from her home. This was the end of the line. 

Whether that meant saving her son’s life and helping him adapt to this strange, sick life or destroying the thing taking up residence in his body to at least let Danny’s spirit rest. 

She honestly couldn’t pick the outcome she preferred. 

  
  


Valerie was exhausted and hurting, but she didn’t have a chance to do anything but take charge. Now was not the time to rest. 

No way she could allow Maddie or Jack to take charge of the situation when Valerie wasn’t even sure what  _ side _ they were on. 

Besides, Sam had already instructed her on things that should be taken care of before they leave for the ghost zone. 

Valerie took a deep breath before speaking. “Mr. Fenton, I need you to go outside and rinse the blood off of the steps and hide any evidence that Danny was here,” she said but the large man had already nodded and headed to complete his task before she had even finished speaking. He seemed eager to help. That was good. “Paulina and Star, I need you two to get back in the van and drive it around town like we had planned to try and confuse them, okay?” Both girls nodded and left, leaving only one person. “Mrs. Fenton,” Valerie paused, trying to read the woman’s expression. She couldn’t tell whether the woman was hostile, and that unnerved her. Finally, she forced the words out of your mouth. “Is your ghost portal still active?”

The woman hesitated but nodded. 

“Alright. I’ll need you to work it so we can enter as soon as Sam and Jazz get here,” Valerie said while her eyes scanned Danny’s face. He was gripping her hand tightly, eyes still closed and almost making Valerie doubt that he was still conscious. She was sitting on the couch and cradling his head in her lap, her other hand pressing a folded blanket against his abdomen to try and stop the bleeding. 

“They’re almost here, Danny. Just a little longer…” she urged, giving him a nervous smile as she pressed the blanket harder against his wound despite his eyes squeezing shut in pain and the pained grunt he gave. The blanket was steadily soaking through with his ectoplasm. 

She glanced back up to Maddie, who was looking down at Danny with a blank expression. Valerie tensed, wondering whether this woman would prove to be a threat. She stepped closer and Valerie tightened her hold on Danny who only groaned in response.

But instead of anything malicious, Maddie simply kneeled beside them, tears in her eyes as she rested the back of her hand against her son’s head. 

“Danny?” She called, eyes saddened at the lack of response. “W-what is he?” She asked Valerie and Valerie was stunned into silence. 

“From what I was told,” Valerie started, hoping that the woman wouldn’t lash out due to not liking what she heard. “The portal you guys made somehow gave him ghost powers. Or at least, he’s able to turn into what Sam calls his ‘ghost form’.”

Maddie’s eyes widened, but she had no other outward expression. 

“I understand. So we  _ are _ responsible for this. He was… fused? With ectoplasm?” She brushes the bangs away from his face. “So… he isn’t actually dead? Or… no, he might have died  _ because _ of the portal infusing him with ectoplasm.”

Maddie rambled on, obviously deep in thought, but her hand remained gentle on Danny’s pale face. 

Maddie’s gaze suddenly darkened and her face tightened and Valerie tensed, ready to fight the woman if need be. 

Just then, the sound of a vehicle pulling into the driveway could be heard, soon followed by loud footsteps and then a knock on the door.

“Hey, uh, Red? Your hood still up?” Sam called through the door. 

“Yeah,” Valerie called back as Maddie opened the door to let them in. Sam, Jazz, and  _ Dash _ all walked in. Dash hung towards the back of the room, his eyes trained on Danny as Sam and Jazz rushed to his side. 

“Oh, Danny!” Jazz said, cupping his face and turning it to face her. “We’re going to take you to Frostbite okay?”

Danny nodded and looked past Sam at Dash. “Uh, Sam? I’m not sure I can stay conscious the whole way. Me n’ Red have been struggling with that,” he said, his voice strained and quiet. 

“It’s okay; he’s okay! I’ll- I’ll explain later when you’re better, okay?” Sam said worriedly, looking up to see Valerie’s sharp eyes piercing hers.

Whatever happened between Sam and Dash needed to be revealed  _ soon _ . There was no room for any errors, no matter how small. Even if Sam didn’t want to tell Danny stressful news until he was in a better state, Valerie knew she would get the answer out of Sam as soon as this mission was complete. 

Sam quickly looked away and nudged Jazz in the side. “Jazz, why don’t you go get the spector speeder going while we bring him down there?” She asked, effectively changing the subject.

Jazz nodded, eyes filled with angry tears. “Yeah, okay. Mom?” 

This seemed to pull Maddie out of the trance she was in watching them and she jerked to attention before nodding and leading the way to the lab. 

Soon, Jazz and Maddie were out of the room and Valerie once again turned her gaze to Sam. 

“Okay. You get the feet,” she said before standing up, holding Danny below his shoulder. Sam grabbed his feet and helped navigate Valerie through the house and down to the lab. Dash followed a few paces behind. 

Once they arrived at the lab, everything was already in place. The portal was open with Maddie standing at the controls and Jazz was strapped into the driver’s seat of the specter speeder, looking back at them. Valerie climbed into the backseat, pulling Danny in with her. Sam and Dash climbed into the front seat and no sooner than the door was shut was Jazz speeding through the ghost zone. 

“Tucker, are you still there?” Jazz called, pressing a hand to her ear to better hear Tucker’s response.

“Okay, we’re in the ghost zone and on the right track,” Jazz said before pausing. “Also, my, uh, parents are kind of home. So… good luck with that.” 

The rest of the trip was passed in silence. The only sounds were the rustling of fabric as Valerie pressed towel after towel on Danny’s wound. It was Sam’s idea to pack in case of the need for any sort of first aid, and Valerie was thankful for her foresight. 

The minutes ticked by and Valerie’s heartbeat was so loud in her ears that she felt a headache coming on. 

There was a flash of white light and the sound of everyone gasping and turning in their seat to find Danny  _ Fenton _ unconscious in the backseat. The ectoplasmic soaked blanket soon colored red. 

Valerie’s hands were shaking and her breathing was erratic. What if all of this was for nothing and Danny  _ died _ because of them? 

No, because of  _ her _ . She was the reason he got caught. She attacked him from behind like a  _ coward _ and injured him and then he got captured and-

“V- Red? Hey, we’re almost there. Just a few more minutes,” Sam called, offering her a nod of encouragement before her eyes dropped back to Danny’s face. 

When they finally landed, they were met with numerous giants all with grim faces. Once again, thanks to Sam’s foresight and planning, they had already been briefed on the plan by Sam and Tucker who traveled into the ghost zone the day prior to inform them. 

As soon as the door to the specter speeder was opened, there were large, white, furry hands reaching in and pulling Danny away. 

Valerie was tempted to hang on to him. She didn’t  _ know _ these ghosts. They could be just itching at the thought of killing Phantom! 

She climbed out of the specter speeder, intent on staying right beside Danny, but Sam grabbed her arm. 

“We’d only get in the way,” she said, but her face seemed just as apprehensive as Valerie’s. 

One giant with an arm made of bone and ice came and knelt before their group, his face sad, but determined. 

“I assure you, we will do everything in our power to assist the Great One. You are more than welcome to stay while he heals. We will notify you immediately once he is recovered enough to travel home. Although, he is always welcome to stay as long as he wishes, as are  _ you _ ,” the yeti-ghost said. Valerie thought the ghost  _ had _ to be some type of royalty the way he spoke with so much authority and certainty. Although, it was nice to hear that they were confident that Danny would not only survive, but recover enough to go back home. 

“Thanks, Frostbite. Some of us need to return to ensure we weren’t followed and that everything went smoothly, but we’ll be back,” Sam said before turning to Dash, who looked like he was either about to scream or be sick. 

“Samantha, I do need to ask that your visitations be limited and discreet. The Ghost Zone is well aware that Phantom is out of commission, and since we are the most advanced medical center on this side of the zone, it would rouse suspicion if his allies were to frequent our island too much. I want to focus all of our manpower into healing and protecting him, but I would like to avoid attracting the attention of some of the Great One’s more powerful enemies,” Frostbite said apologetically, but Sam was already nodding, deep in thought. 

“Alright. Jazz? You’ll most likely need to head home to fix things with your parents and help oversee the operation's cleanup with me. Dash, you’re coming back too. We don’t need the attention of another missing kid. Red, I think you should stay here with Danny. You’d be the best protection for him, and your  _ guardian _ already knows what is going on and won’t draw attention to us. Does this sound good to everyone?” Sam said, looking to Jazz who seemed upset at the prospect of leaving, but ultimately nodded, accepting her next task in this operation. 

She’d have a hell of a job explaining this to her and Danny’s parents. 

Sam then looked to Valerie, who nodded. She’s glad Sam didn’t ask her to leave, because she wasn’t quite sure whether she would have been willing to. 

“Okay. Red? I’ve already explained this to Jazz, but Dash saw Danny transform on the GIW security feed as I was erasing it. It’s alright though, I’m confident that he won’t turn Danny, or us, in. He knows  _ exactly _ what will happen if he crosses us,” she said, sending a glare to Dash who was still staring at the icy island they were on, but nodding his ascent to the conversation. 

“He’d  _ better _ not. But… I guess you guys let  _ me _ in on it and that was a  _ lot _ riskier, so I don’t really have a place to talk,” Valerie said, offering a small smile to Sam. 

“You do, actually,” Jazz said. “Anyone willing to risk their lives to save Danny’s life has a small say in what goes on.” Jazz paused before a small smile crept across her face. “At least until he’s awake and returns to doing whatever the hell he and Tucker want despite all of my and Sam’s frequent advice to  _ not  _ be a dumbass…” 

Valerie laughed before turning towards the yeti-ghost,  _ Frostbite _ , who seemed to be waiting for her. 

Dash cleared his throat. “Yeah, well. I promise I won’t say anything. Honest. Not to anyone. It’s the least I can do,” he said while awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck and avoiding looking at any of them. 

“Okay, well… I guess this is goodbye for now,” Jazz said before pulling Valerie into a hug. “Take care of my brother, okay?” Valerie nodded as Jazz pulled away. “And thank you, Frostbite. For all of your help.”

Sam smiled at the yeti-ghost before turning and pulling Dash and Jazz towards the specter speeder. 

“We’ll handle everything on our end. Contact us once he’s up again, okay Red?” Sam said before the door to the specter speeder closed, leaving Valerie staring at her own bloody reflection. 

  
  


She had surveyed the island numerous times in her days here, keeping herself as hidden as possible, and on full alert for any possible invaders or suspicious beings. 

She did a round in the morning, at lunch, and at night, although it was near impossible to tell the time in the Ghost Zone. Her phone had died two days ago, but she had promised Sam she would return with Danny on her hoverboard ( _ maybe Danny would even be strong enough to fly! _ ) as soon as his doctors said he could leave. 

The medical technology hidden away in the remote, icy tundra was  _ astounding _ and had Danny awake and cracking jokes after only 36 hours. His wounds were healing fast which was apparently one of his lesser powers, but his core was still injured, whatever that meant. 

According to the yeti-ghost acting as Danny’s nurse, a ghost core was some ball of energy that was vital to their existence and power. Their driving force. 

Valerie wasn’t too sure about it, but to her, it meant that Danny wasn’t necessarily  _ injured _ anymore, but he was still critically weak. Despite him sitting up and trying to play for normal by cracking lame jokes, she could tell the simple task of carrying a conversation was taxing to him. Not only that, but there was something different in his eyes. 

She’s sure that he endured hell while with the GIW, and not just physically, but she still wasn’t prepared for him to look so haunted. 

Still, he was making great progress. She was only allowed to see him for two hours twice each day. At lunch and right before bed. The majority of his time was spent sleeping or going through different treatments and therapies that were meant to strengthen and heal his core. 

She didn’t bother to keep up with his procedures anymore. She had learned to trust Frostbite and his people. Besides, most of the things they said were foreign to her and she couldn’t grasp the concept anyway. 

What she  _ could _ grasp is that Danny was improving. He could even move around a little on his own before becoming fatigued and having to rest. He even threw a snowball he manifested at her at lunch today and suffered a very long and grueling lecture from his nurse yeti-ghost because of it. The ghost was adamant that he not use his powers unless during their ‘therapies’. 

Still, the entire event made Valerie laugh so hard she had to excuse herself from the room to avoid becoming the nurse’s next target. 

Ultimately, she trusted that it wouldn’t be too many more days before he was released. They couldn’t have been here for more than 6 days to have already gained so much ground. She was just ready to head home with Danny at her side. 

  
  


Danny was shaking with either excitement or nervousness. He couldn’t quite tell.

Today was the day that he was finally going  _ home _ . Sure, that meant he’d have to deal with the notion that his parents now know his secret and that the GIW was still probably out for blood… but at least he’d be home with his friends.  _ And _ , he wouldn’t be poked and prodded by well-meaning doctors every hour of the day. 

Hopefully, his parents kept their curiosity to a minimum and didn't try to convince him to participate in any studies or experiments. Honestly, he’s starting to understand why Tucker hates hospitals so much. Luckily for him, the labs in the Far Frozen don’t really have a ‘hospital’ feel to them.

There’s no sick smell or harsh fluorescent lights or crisp lab coats. Just a bunch of large, furry giants that tried in vain to explain every little thing they were doing to him. It was nice to know what was going on, but he’s glad he’s never been interested in medicine or being a doctor.  _ Way _ too many words. And needles. 

But, he was going home with Valerie today, so he wouldn’t have to worry about any of this anymore. He’d have to worry about homework and his parent’s embarrassing him, instead. 

He  _ knew _ this was immature thinking and that he’d also have to worry about things such as the GIW finding him, ghosts using his absence to invade Amity and his parent’s decision on whether to accept him or not. Not only that, but with him being missing for so long, it would be weird for him to suddenly reappear as soon as Phantom did, so Phantom would have to stay on hold for several weeks after he was already back. His nurse had already drilled that he could not use his powers for a full six weeks after he left their facility. 

He had no real intention of sticking to that, which was probably why she said it while Valerie was in the room. She had already said she, Sam, and Tucker would cover for him for the six weeks he was out of commission. 

He would argue, but even the thought of shifting made him tired, so he knew he’d be a liability in battle for right now. Still, it would be nice just to be home, try and smooth things over with his parents and school. Plus, he was  _ so _ ready to sleep in his own bed again.

And after the six weeks, he’d burn the GIW to the ground. It doesn't matter if he has to do it alone; he’s going to finish it. And once that stain was gone, his life would regain some semblance of normality. As much normality as his life could get anyway. 

Valerie dragged him out of his thoughts by knocking on his door. 

_ It was finally time _ . 

He couldn’t keep the smile off his face as he followed her outside and they said their farewells to Frostbite and the nurses and doctors that cared for him. 

Soon, they were flying through the ghost zone, the wind ruffling his hair and making him feel just as free as he did when he was flying above Amity on late nights. 

The trip felt like it lasted  _ forever _ , but he understood why Valerie wasn’t going full speed. She,  _ and most likely Sam and Jazz _ , would be treating him like he was made of glass until he was fully back on his feet. And probably for a good time afterward too. 

Oh well, he’d have to deal with it until he could show them just how okay he was. And after that, he would bring the GIW to its knees before wiping them from existence. 

But first, he needed to prepare to meet his friends and family again. He hasn’t seen Sam, Jazz, or Tucker in what felt like  _ months _ . Although, he is nervous about seeing his parents again. But if Valerie can accept his secret, then it should be possible for his mom and dad to accept it too. Valerie had hated Phantom more than anyone and she was the very one that  _ saved _ him from the GIW. Along with many others, he assumes. 

Not only that, but she has stayed in the ghost zone with him for over a week while he was healing and has even become almost friendly towards Frostbite and some of his people. If Valerie ‘ghosts ruined my life’ Grey can learn to be okay with him and other ghosts then it’s not too far of a stretch for him to expect something similar from his parents. 

Although he knows there will be many hard questions and topics that he is going to have to avoid. Hopefully, Jazz has already handled some of the damage control. 

As the Fenton Portal came into view, Danny felt his legs become weak. Maybe he was a tad more nervous than he’d like to let on. 

Just as Valerie slowed down to enter the open portal, Danny suddenly felt the urge to go back to being poked and prodded in the Far Frozen. 

  
  


Valerie was prepared to fight off both of the Fenton parents  _ and _ all of the GIW as she and Danny entered the portal. She didn’t have a clue what to expect since she had been unable to report back or get information since her phone died within their first few days in the ghost zone. 

What she didn’t expect was for the lab to be totally empty. 

Which, looking back, it makes sense. No one really knew when they were coming back, so there wasn’t much of a way for them to prepare a welcome home party whether friend or foe. 

As her board retracted back into her boots and she stood in her filthy suit with Danny behind her, an alarm sounded. Valerie armed her wrist band as the door slammed open and the rush of footsteps reached her ears. 

She powered up her blaster, aiming at whoever was coming down the steps, only to be met with Jazz Fenton, who was also aiming a blaster. 

They stood frozen for a few seconds before Jazz dropped her blaster and rushed towards Danny. 

“Danny! Oh my god, you’re back!” 

Valerie stepped aside as Jazz all but tackled Danny, who just laughed and pretended to be embarrassed. She gave them a few moments before trying to gain Jazz’s attention. 

“Have you smoothed things over with your parents?” She said while eyeing a phone charger abandoned on a workbench and quickly plugging in her phone. 

“Yeah, for the most part. They really just want their son back, to be honest. Mom didn’t really take the news well, but I think it’s mainly because she blames herself. We talked it through, and have already made an agreement. They’re not to bombard you with questions or ask you to do anything to ‘prove’ anything. Honestly, we couldn’t have asked for much more,” Jazz said, not once looking away from her baby brother. 

“Where are mom and dad?” Danny asked, a slight tremble in his voice. 

“Oh, they are currently handling the GIW, as per Sam’s idea. They’re negotiating the legalities of your ‘special’ conditions in a confidential hearing. Don’t worry, though. Your secret is safe. Only a select few will ever hear about it, and most already knew,” Jazz continued, brushing Danny’s hair back. “Honestly, if it goes south for some reason, you’ll be the first to know, I promise.” 

Valerie paid close attention to what Jazz was saying, trying to see if she was sparing Danny from any critical information, but she seemed truthful. Still, Valerie would need to ask Sam to see if their stories aligned. She trusted them, sure, but she would do everything in her power to protect Danny. 

Maybe it was her perverted way to try and make amends for her past failures, but the drive was still there. 

Besides, negotiations with the GIW? It seemed absurd, but Sam probably had a good reason if she had been the one to suggest it. Besides, the Fentons are a private business with a license to research ectoplasmic entities, so Valerie imagines the hearing will get messy. At the least, it will buy them some time to figure something else out. 

She turned her phone on and keyed in her father’s number, suddenly overwhelmed with the need to hear his voice. 

  
  


The six weeks of being on the bench dragged by, but they were  _ finally _ over. He was ready to break at week two and just go flying where Valerie and Sam would  _ never _ find him, but they had already planned for him to not stick to his doctor’s advice and had the ghost portal on. He couldn’t leave the damn house. At least not as  _ Phantom _ . But Tucker, the traitor, had geared Val’s gear to identify his ectoplasmic signature  _ immediately _ and it covered almost the entire town. If he so much as shifted to get into the house because he locked himself out he would get an angry phone call from Val within  _ seconds _ . 

It was torture, honestly. Not to mention his overbearing sister wasn’t letting him out of her sights for a moment. 

The worst part, though, was seeing Sam and Valerie and Tucker and Jazz worn out and bruised at school all day while he had done nothing but watch movies and sleep and still somehow manage to not do his homework. 

His  _ parents _ had even been hard at work fooling with the GIW and working out a solid truce that ended in a half-way partnership to keep Amity safe and both signing that Phantom, since still technically human, was off-limits and had autonomy. 

It was a smart move on Sam and his parent’s part, but he was disturbed at the notion that if he attacked the GIW now, his parents and friends would be held liable. He was honestly banking on the GIW breaking the truce which would give him free rein for revenge. 

Although perhaps that’s why the GIW agreed to the terms… so that he  _ wouldn’t _ be able to attack. Honestly, he had been planning to burn the entire organization to the fucking  _ ground _ . But Sam and his parents had worked so hard for a peaceful solution, the least he could do was give it a chance no matter how he felt about it. 

The truce  _ did _ mean he could get back to work as  _ soon _ as he was off ‘sick leave’, which was a major positive. As the end of the six weeks was closing in, he was basically foaming at the mouth to go for a long flight and get in a good, long fight. Hopefully, Skulker or Ember would be out and he wouldn’t have to waste energy with the Box Ghost. Hell, at this point he might seek out Skulker just to entice the ghost into a fight. Although he would surely receive hell for it from Sam and Jazz. Probably Val too.

  
  
  


He didn’t  _ quite _ reach the end of the six weeks before he was back in action. A powerful deity came to Amity to wreak havoc, calling for Phantom by name. Sam had ordered him to stand down, but he quickly realized that Jazz, Tucker, Sam, and Val were being overrun. 

He was sitting on his bed staring at the television as ‘Team Phantom’ and the Red Huntress teamed up to take down yet another monster. The public had been calling for Phantom's return for weeks now, but Sam, masked and hidden from public view, had de-escalated most interviews saying that he was in the ghost zone regaining strength and would return once seriously needed. 

This had worked for a while, but it was apparent that this particular ghost wasn’t going to go down without a serious fight. 

He was shaking with anticipation for the fight as he stood and shifted for the first time in ages. The transformation left him slightly dizzy, but after a few unsteady seconds, he could feel his core surge with overflowing strength as it was  _ finally _ called upon. 

He allowed himself to float in his room just to test his stability, but it was as if he hadn’t missed a day. 

He couldn’t keep the smile off of his face as he turned intangible and dove through his bedroom wall and out into the cool winter air. He stayed steady in the air, but couldn’t keep himself contained and was soon pouring on the speed and racing towards the fight just like in the past. 

For the first time, he didn’t feel like protecting the town was so much of a burden as it was a blessing. The icy wind was whipping through his hair and beating his face as he raced over buildings and dove under a billboard. His smile was unbreakable on his face as he looked down on the town he cared for so much. He spotted a group of children screaming in excitement and waving at him as he shot by which filled him with even more giddy energy. 

He let out a shout of excitement as he gained altitude to be able to spot where the fight had progressed to in the town. He could see smoke from a building in a distance and hear the roar of the beast that had dared to come to Amity. 

As he neared the fight, he could see the purple and black wolf shaped creature snap it’s dripping green fangs towards Jazz, who narrowly managed to dodge. It advanced, about to attack again, and Danny allowed his green flames to ignite in his hands before aiming and letting off a powerful blast. 

With so much stored energy, the blast was strong enough to knock the wolf off of his four legs and onto its side. It left his hand stinging and smoking, but his core was swirling with pride and energy as it was finally able to fulfill its obsession with defending his town. 

He spared a glance at Tucker who was helping Jazz back to her feet and gave him a wide smile. Valerie flew to his side and Sam was smiling proudly at him. Relief was adamant on all of their exhausted faces. Even though he couldn’t see Valerie’s face, her stance seemed slouched and her legs were shaking with the sheer strain of being the head of so many different battles over the past several weeks.

The wolf climbed back to its feet and it laughed as its sights focused on Danny. 

“Finally, the adversary I was seeking,” it said in a chilling and dark voice. Valerie tensed beside him, but he laughed loudly and allowed his entire body to be engulfed in his green swirling energy. His white aura was shining proudly, but even it was overshadowed as green flames encircled him. 

He looked at Sam, Tucker, and Jazz who seemed to be regrouping towards the sidelines. He felt powerful at the notion that it wasn’t just the citizens of Amity who felt safer with his presence, but his own friends entrusted him to protect both the town and them. 

He waved Valerie away too. “I can handle this, Red. You take a breather. I feel  _ amazing _ ,” he said, cheeks sore with the strength of his smile. He probably looked a tad manic, but honestly, there was no better high than  _ finally _ fulfilling his obsession and once again being able to protect those he cared for. 

The wolf snarled and lept, its massive purple and black body arching through the air as if it intended to snap him right out of the air. 

He dove towards it, hands ablaze, as he was once again able to charge into a battle worth fighting. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YAYY! All done! I'll be working on my other Danny Phantom story truce next, so check it out! Each chapter is more or less standalone! 
> 
> Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Phew! Glad I'm posting more stories on a3o instead of studying for my college exams this week... eh, priorities. 
> 
> Let me know what you think in the comments! This story will most likely be updated within the next two weeks.


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